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Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) by Jules Laforgue
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About the author
Jules Laforgue
131 books49 followersJules Laforgue (Montevideo, 16 August 1860 – Paris, 20 August 1887) was an innovative French poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbolist, part-impressionist".
Strongly influenced by Walt Whitman, Laforgue was one of the first French poets to write in free verse. Philosophically, he was an ardent disciple of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann. His poetry would be one of the major influences on the young T. S. Eliot (cf. Prufrock and other observations) and Ezra Pound. Louis Untermeyer wrote, "Prufrock, published in 1917, was immediately hailed as a new manner in English literature and belittled as an echo of Laforgue and the French symbolists to whom Eliot was indebted."
Strongly influenced by Walt Whitman, Laforgue was one of the first French poets to write in free verse. Philosophically, he was an ardent disciple of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann. His poetry would be one of the major influences on the young T. S. Eliot (cf. Prufrock and other observations) and Ezra Pound. Louis Untermeyer wrote, "Prufrock, published in 1917, was immediately hailed as a new manner in English literature and belittled as an echo of Laforgue and the French symbolists to whom Eliot was indebted."
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February 2, 2025
Jules Laforgue is a mystery man. In many senses he is invisible. Wikipedia doesn't bother adding him to the 27 Club: although he was an artist who died aged 27. Laforgue is French, but was born in Uruguay. He is an influential poet who is not mentioned in the Oxford Very Short Introduction to French Literature or William Cleaver Wilkinson's French Classics.
The Penguin edition has a delightful and enlightening introduction by Graham Dunstan Martin, who also translated the poems.
All poems in the collection are in both French and English, so if you're interesting in building your French vocabulary, it is recommended.
Don't bother with this book if you are offended by crudities: Laforgue considers life to be dancing and coupling between a shit-smeared cradle and a similar-smelling coffin. Like his life, irony is a major component.
He considered there to be three sexes: Men, Women and Englishwomen. His wife was English.
He compared emotion to a keyboard—sometimes one gets the feeling he's playing us.
His odd juxtapositions appealed to Marcel Duchamp.
If you "take delight in a fugue, a word, a tone, a tilt of the head," it may be for you.
The Penguin edition has a delightful and enlightening introduction by Graham Dunstan Martin, who also translated the poems.
All poems in the collection are in both French and English, so if you're interesting in building your French vocabulary, it is recommended.
Don't bother with this book if you are offended by crudities: Laforgue considers life to be dancing and coupling between a shit-smeared cradle and a similar-smelling coffin. Like his life, irony is a major component.
He considered there to be three sexes: Men, Women and Englishwomen. His wife was English.
He compared emotion to a keyboard—sometimes one gets the feeling he's playing us.
His odd juxtapositions appealed to Marcel Duchamp.
If you "take delight in a fugue, a word, a tone, a tilt of the head," it may be for you.
Displaying 1 of 1 review