What do you think?
Rate this book
Essential Poems and Writings of Robert Desnos
Robert Desnos (1900-1945) was one of the primary poets and writers of the Surrealist movement of the years 1924-1930. He wrote, and collaboratively wrote, many influential and celebrated books. Besides poetry, Desnos also wrote on a wide range of subjects from film texts and criticism to novels. During WWII he became a poet of the resistance, but was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to several notorious concentration camps for the duration of the war. He died as a result of his internment. This is the most comprehensive anthology of the writings of Robert Desnos ever assembled and translated into the English language. The extensive poetry section is bilingual. The English translations are by the most renowned translators of Robert Desnos.
418 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 2007
8 people are currently reading
741 people want to read
About the author
Robert Desnos
138 books111 followersRobert Desnos (4 July 1900 – 8 June 1945) was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 8, 2014
Before buying this book I had been hoping for years for a well translated and substantial collection of his work. This is a substantial collection - loaded with poems (in facing French) from all phases of his short life, along with excerpts from his novels, complete essays (including two on film) and articles, AND a lengthy postface that's a leisurely analysis of his works. But I'm still not sure about all of the translations, mainly because I don't know some of the translators, and as much as I like the editorial work Mary Ann Cawes has accomplished in her career, I still don't trust her translations.
Desnos is famous for being the sleeping surrealist, who could fall asleep in a flash in the midst of a cafe crowd and start uttering waves upon waves of pure surrealism, and he was justly praised and adored for this by Andre Breton; but then Breton got mad at Desnos for writing journalism and for writing rhyming poems (petty petty fascist) and kicked him out of surrealism. But this didn't stop Desnos, as he was pure surrealism, and so continued to pour forth literary wonders until his death at 45, courtesy of the Nazis.
Included in the collection is Desnos' "Third Manifesto of Surrealism" wherein he gives it right back to Breton, calling him among other things a liar and a hypocrite. I enjoyed this because it threw into sharp relief Desnos' sharp wit, passion, and anger. In this it provides a welcome and obvious dark side to his other work which, at least superficially, can appear gentle, soft, and dreamy. There is a gentle dreaminess to his writing, but it is deceptive, as so much of his work is written on a blank sheet of death and emptiness and desolation. His was a complex sensibility beneath a veil of simplicity.
He was a surrealist through and through. His work is founded in total revolt against established behaviors and actions (though in all ways he seemed a supreme humanist), and is saturated with dream explorations, metamorphoses, human love, and the transformation of the real into the marvelous.
Desnos is famous for being the sleeping surrealist, who could fall asleep in a flash in the midst of a cafe crowd and start uttering waves upon waves of pure surrealism, and he was justly praised and adored for this by Andre Breton; but then Breton got mad at Desnos for writing journalism and for writing rhyming poems (petty petty fascist) and kicked him out of surrealism. But this didn't stop Desnos, as he was pure surrealism, and so continued to pour forth literary wonders until his death at 45, courtesy of the Nazis.
Included in the collection is Desnos' "Third Manifesto of Surrealism" wherein he gives it right back to Breton, calling him among other things a liar and a hypocrite. I enjoyed this because it threw into sharp relief Desnos' sharp wit, passion, and anger. In this it provides a welcome and obvious dark side to his other work which, at least superficially, can appear gentle, soft, and dreamy. There is a gentle dreaminess to his writing, but it is deceptive, as so much of his work is written on a blank sheet of death and emptiness and desolation. His was a complex sensibility beneath a veil of simplicity.
He was a surrealist through and through. His work is founded in total revolt against established behaviors and actions (though in all ways he seemed a supreme humanist), and is saturated with dream explorations, metamorphoses, human love, and the transformation of the real into the marvelous.
January 11, 2009
Desnos is a surrealist in the classic French sense. His themes are love, reality, life, death, uncertainty, and change.
His form is free with little punctuation. Line lengths contrast one another to emphasize and vary pace. Here are two lines of varying length from "Obsession:"
I bring a bit of seaweed, which was tangled with the sea foam and this comb.
But your hair is more neatly fixed than the clouds with the wind with celestial crimson glowing in them and are such that with quiverings of life and sobs twisting sometimes between my
hands they die with waves and the reefs of the strand so
abundantly that we shall not soon again despair of perfumes
and their flight at evening when this comb marks motionless the
stars buried in their rapid and silky flow traversed by my hands
seeking still at their root the humid caress of a sea more
dangerous than the one where this seaweed was gathered with
the froth scattered by a tempest.
A star dying is like your lips.
The extreme length of the second changes both the pace of the poem and emphasizes the simile of the third line.
Imagery is important and powerful too. He uses metaphor, but imagery is how he many times communicates his emotion and theme - much like Eliot uses images as "objective correlative." Late in the poem, to show the effect of death around the speaker he uses coldness and stillness and the image of "The mines make a muffled snoring / The roofs are strewn with anthracite." Ice and the darkness of the mine but with a muffled snoring conveys a stillness and lack of energy.
Tone, pace, scope, setting, and time all shift between and within the poem. Desnos loves reversals and inversions. He changes the time and setting with the lines "An instant passes with a mine's profundity”, "How cold it is in the impasse where I knew you", and "Before too long I'll find you again near these china-asters." The poem takes the reader seemingly from the sea to the morgue to the afterlife. The tone of the poem goes from romantic to somber when realizing the setting is a morgue rather than the sea and switches again to a tentative hopefulness when the speaker confidently predicts a reunion in the afterlife, but the reader knows that may be wishful. Like the changes of tone, pace, and line length are used for amplification, Desnos changes scope for the same effect: "The earth crumbles and stars screeching like iron across mother-of-pearl / But your neatly fixed hair has the shape of a hand." The change of scope and the juxtaposition between the two lines once again changes the tone and pushes the theme of the speaker's love and adoration for the person. Contrast also amplifies the themes of death, loss, and love. Throughout the poem there runs a contrast between the raging, flowing, lively sea versus the complete deathly cold stillness and the darkness and mystery of the mine.
Desnos is a master of other subtle slight of hand techniques, almost trickery, but it all still manages to convey meaning and push theme. Although there are no clear examples in "Obsession," Desnos uses inversion in many of his poems. For instance from "For a dream of day" there's the line "The murder was splendid." The same poem holds an example of a unique touch that Desnos calls metamorphing. In fact the line reads, "...here's a poem of metamorphoses. The swan becoming a matchbox and phosphorous disguised as a tie." "Reversals are also a favorite of Desnos: "Will the schist brighten the white night of cork?" asks the opening line of "At daybreak." Inversions, reversals, and metamorphing add to the tension, energy and amplification of Desnos poems. As does another technique he employs tastefully - repetition. In "The voice of Robert Desnos," the speaker pleads, demands, and begs all at once as seen in the repetition: "I summon flesh / I summon the one I love / I summon the one I love / I summon the one I love." The repetition changes the declaration to desperation.
Desnos poems are dynamic. The tone changes, the shifts in pace, the imaginative images, juxtapositions, contrasts, changes in setting, shifting of the timeline, and metamorphing create poems full of vitality and energy. The reader’s imagination is turned on to the fullest and the faculty of interpretation has to be ignited or the reader will be left stranded. Desnos holds no readers hands through the poem, but he gives enough information and context to allow for readers to understand in general what is happening in the lines. Therefore his poems engage the reader. It is powerful.
His form is free with little punctuation. Line lengths contrast one another to emphasize and vary pace. Here are two lines of varying length from "Obsession:"
I bring a bit of seaweed, which was tangled with the sea foam and this comb.
But your hair is more neatly fixed than the clouds with the wind with celestial crimson glowing in them and are such that with quiverings of life and sobs twisting sometimes between my
hands they die with waves and the reefs of the strand so
abundantly that we shall not soon again despair of perfumes
and their flight at evening when this comb marks motionless the
stars buried in their rapid and silky flow traversed by my hands
seeking still at their root the humid caress of a sea more
dangerous than the one where this seaweed was gathered with
the froth scattered by a tempest.
A star dying is like your lips.
The extreme length of the second changes both the pace of the poem and emphasizes the simile of the third line.
Imagery is important and powerful too. He uses metaphor, but imagery is how he many times communicates his emotion and theme - much like Eliot uses images as "objective correlative." Late in the poem, to show the effect of death around the speaker he uses coldness and stillness and the image of "The mines make a muffled snoring / The roofs are strewn with anthracite." Ice and the darkness of the mine but with a muffled snoring conveys a stillness and lack of energy.
Tone, pace, scope, setting, and time all shift between and within the poem. Desnos loves reversals and inversions. He changes the time and setting with the lines "An instant passes with a mine's profundity”, "How cold it is in the impasse where I knew you", and "Before too long I'll find you again near these china-asters." The poem takes the reader seemingly from the sea to the morgue to the afterlife. The tone of the poem goes from romantic to somber when realizing the setting is a morgue rather than the sea and switches again to a tentative hopefulness when the speaker confidently predicts a reunion in the afterlife, but the reader knows that may be wishful. Like the changes of tone, pace, and line length are used for amplification, Desnos changes scope for the same effect: "The earth crumbles and stars screeching like iron across mother-of-pearl / But your neatly fixed hair has the shape of a hand." The change of scope and the juxtaposition between the two lines once again changes the tone and pushes the theme of the speaker's love and adoration for the person. Contrast also amplifies the themes of death, loss, and love. Throughout the poem there runs a contrast between the raging, flowing, lively sea versus the complete deathly cold stillness and the darkness and mystery of the mine.
Desnos is a master of other subtle slight of hand techniques, almost trickery, but it all still manages to convey meaning and push theme. Although there are no clear examples in "Obsession," Desnos uses inversion in many of his poems. For instance from "For a dream of day" there's the line "The murder was splendid." The same poem holds an example of a unique touch that Desnos calls metamorphing. In fact the line reads, "...here's a poem of metamorphoses. The swan becoming a matchbox and phosphorous disguised as a tie." "Reversals are also a favorite of Desnos: "Will the schist brighten the white night of cork?" asks the opening line of "At daybreak." Inversions, reversals, and metamorphing add to the tension, energy and amplification of Desnos poems. As does another technique he employs tastefully - repetition. In "The voice of Robert Desnos," the speaker pleads, demands, and begs all at once as seen in the repetition: "I summon flesh / I summon the one I love / I summon the one I love / I summon the one I love." The repetition changes the declaration to desperation.
Desnos poems are dynamic. The tone changes, the shifts in pace, the imaginative images, juxtapositions, contrasts, changes in setting, shifting of the timeline, and metamorphing create poems full of vitality and energy. The reader’s imagination is turned on to the fullest and the faculty of interpretation has to be ignited or the reader will be left stranded. Desnos holds no readers hands through the poem, but he gives enough information and context to allow for readers to understand in general what is happening in the lines. Therefore his poems engage the reader. It is powerful.
October 6, 2022
Hour farther witch art in Heaven
Hallowed bee, thine aim.
Thy king done come!
Thy will be done in
ersatz is in Heaven.
Kippers this day-hour,
Delhi bread.
And four kippers, sour trace, pa says.
As we four give them that trace paths against us.
Leader's not in to tempt Asians;
Butter liver (as from Eve)
fill our men.
****
Will the schist brighten the white night of Cork?
We'll be lost in midnight's corridor with calm horror of
the dying sob
Come all you ever-famous lizards climbing plants
digital flesheaters
Come vines
Whistle of revolts
Come giraffes
I invite you to a feast
So grand the light of the glasses will equal the aurora borealis
Womens' nails will be strangled swans
Not far from here a grass is drying by the roadside.
****
I am marked by my loves and for life
Like a wild horse escaped from the gauchos
Who, finding once more the prairies' freedom
Shows the mares his hair burned by branding
While on the deep sea with great virile gestures
The mermaid, singing toward a carbon sky
Amid reefs murderous to vessels,
In the heart of whirlwinds, makes the anemone flower.
February 12, 2008
I believe this is the only bilingual selection of Desnos currently in print. For that reason alone this book is invaluable; Desnos, more than any other of the surrealists, loses much in translation (see Martin Sorrell's extremely questionable "Hour Father" in this selection). I have some issues with Caws's translations of Eluard and Breton but she seems much more inspired with Desnos's work.
October 27, 2008
great writing... but the translations are iffy and in some cases completely up to interpretation. Still stunning pieces of work.
August 28, 2024
I'm thinking Robert Desnos probably deserved Andre Breton's criticism. All I'm saying is that this book includes an inordinate amount of sappy love poems for a surrealist writer...
August 22, 2008
A real tour de force. Finally, there is a great big gathering of one of the most significant of the French Surrealists. Desnos--always mysterious--always delights.
February 19, 2009
Like the title says: these are essential.
October 10, 2017
beautiful
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews