The Collected Poems

by Marcel Proust, Harold Augenbraum (Editor)

For the centennial of Swann's Way: the most complete volume of Proust's poetry ever assembled, in a gorgeous deluxe edition As a young man, Proust wrote both poetry and prose. Even after he embarked on his masterful In Search of Lost Time at the age of thirty-eight, he never stopped writing poetry. His verse is often playful, filled with affection and satire, and is peppered with witty barbs at friends and people in his social circle of aristocrats, writers, musicians, and courtesans.            Few of the poems collected here under the editorship of Harold Augenbraum, founder of the Proust Society of America, have ever been published in book form or translated into English until now. In this dual-language edition of new translations, Augenbraum has brought together nineteen renowned poets and poetry translators to bring Proust's exuberant verse back to life.

Genres: Poetry, France, French Literature, Classics, Literature

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Marcel Proust was a French novelist, best known for his 3000 page masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time), a pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style.

Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51.

Today he is widely recognized as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.

Reviews

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction: The Novelist's Avocation, by Harold Augenbraum
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text

The Intermittences of the Heart
--1. Pederasty. To Daniel Halévy / Pédérastie. À Daniel Halévy
--2. Lines to Laure Hayman / Vers À Laure Hayman
--3. Sonnet Thinking of Daniel Halévy While Noticing Those Who Are Absent / Sonnet en pensant À Daniel Halévy pendant qu'on marque les absents
--4. To Daniel Halévy. While Looking at Him During the First Quarter of an Hour of Detention / À Daniel Halévy. En le regardant, pendant le premier quart d'heure de colle
--5. I Often Contemplate My Memory's Skies / Je contemple souvent le ciel de ma mémoire
--6. Poetry. To Gustave L. de W. / Poésie. À Gustave L. de W.
--7.
--8. On a Maiden Who Tonight Played the Role of Queen Cleopatra, to the Great Anxiety and Future Damnation of a Young Man Who Was There / Sur une Demoiselle qui représenta cette nuit la reine Cléopâtre, pour le plus grand trouble et la future damnation d'un jeune homme qui était là
--9.
--10. In That Exquisite Monastery's Bright Courtyard ... / Comme en la claire cour de l'exquis monastère ...
--11. Sonnet / Sonnet
--12.
--13.
--14. Unfinished Acrostic / Acrostiche Inachevé
--15.
--16.

Portraits of Painters and Musicians
--17. Albert Cuyp I / Albert Cuyp I
--18. Albert Cuyp II / Albert Cuyp II
--19. Paulus Potter / Paulus Potter
--20. Antoine Watteau / Antoine Watteau
--21. Anton Van Dyck / Anton Van Dyck
--22. Chopin / Chopin
--23. Gluck / Gluck
--24. Schumann / Schumann
--25. Mozart / Mozart

Miscellany
--26. For the Revue Lilas. Subject to Eventual Destruction / Pour la Revue Lilas. Sous réserve de destruction ultérieure
--27.
--28.
--29. Magda / Magda
--30.
--31.
--32. Lies / Mensonges
--33. Monday, One O'Clock / Lundi à Une Heure
--34. For the Album of Melancholy. New Ballads of Macedonia / Pour l'Album de Mélancolie. Nouveaux Lieds de Macédoine
--35. For the Album of Melancholy. New Ballad of France / Pour l'Album de Mélancolie. Nouveau Lied de France
--36. Dordrecht / Dordrecht
--37. Dordrecht / Dordrecht
--38. Epitaph for a Dog / Épitaphe pour un Chien
--39.
--40.
--41.

Pastiches
--42. A Brief Pastiche of Madame de Noailles / Petit Pastiche de Mme de Noailles
--43. Addresses / Adresses
--44. The Prayer of the Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre (after Robert de Montesquiou) / Prière du Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre (imité de Robert de Montesquiou)
--45. Echo / Écho

Burlesques and Satires
--46.
--47.
--48.
--49. Song / Chanson
--50.
--51.
--52.
--53.
--54. Budding Young Girls / Jeunes Filles en Fleurs

Poems To ...
--55. To Reynaldo Hahn / À Reynaldo Hahn
--56. On Rainy Weather / Sur le temps pluvieux
--57.
--58.
--59.
--60. Noel! Noel! / Noël ! Noël !
--61. In Gratitude for Such an Admirable Reply / En remerciement d'une réponse admirable
--62.
--63.
--64.
--65.
--66.
--67.
--68.
--69. Song of the Bridge of Sighs / Air du Pont des Soupirs
--70.
--71. Sonnet / Sonnet
--72.
--73.
--74. Quatrains for Guninuls / Quatrains pour Guninuls
--75.
--76.
--77.
--78. To Robert de Billy / À Robert de Billy
--79. Song on Robert / Chanson sur Robert
--80. For Madeleine Lemaire / À Madeleine Lemaire
--81. To the Guest / Au Convive
--82. For Marie Nordlinger / À Marie Nordlinger
--83. To Louisa de Mornand. For Louisa (The Bed Canopy Sky-Colored, the Angel of the Bed Rose-Colored) / À Louisa de Mornand. Pour Louisa (Le Ciel de Lit Couleur de Ciel, L'Ange du Lit Couleur de Rose)
--84. To Antoine Bibesco. There! the Sea Unceasing at the Rocks of Porphyre / À Antoine Bibesco. C'est là : La Mer sans cesse aux rochers de Porphyre
--85. Acrostic / Acrostiche
--86.
--87.
--88. To Emmanuel Bibesco. An Epistle in Burlesque Verse to Thank Emmanuel Bibesco for Having Given Marcel Proust Marthe Bibesco's Address / À Emmanuel Bibesco. Épître en Vers Burlesques Pour Remercier Emmanuel Bibesco d'Avoir Donné à Marcel Proust l'Adresse de Marthe Bibesco
--89. To Bertrand de Fénelon / À Bertrand de Fénelon
--90.
--91.
--92. Passing by Avenue Malakoff / En Passant Avenue Malakoff
--93. To Louis d'Albufera / À Louis d'Albufera
--94. For Count Greffulhe / Au comte Greffulhe
--95. To Comtesse Greffulhe / À la comtesse Greffulhe
--96. To Jean Cocteau / À Jean Cocteau
--97.
--98. To Armand de Gramont. To the Duc de Guiche. A Genealogical Impromptu For Mirliton / À Armand de Gramont. Au Duc de Guiche. Impromptu Généalogique pour Mirliton
--99. Here Dwells Armand de Gramont Duc de Guiche / Ici Demeure Armand de Gramont Duc de Guiche
--100. For Celeste / À Celeste
--101.
--102. To Paul Morand. Ode to Paul Morand / À Paul Morand. Ode à Paul Morand
--103.
--104. To Jean Boissonnas / À Jean Boissonnas

Drawings
Notes
About the Translators

[sfogliarsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conoscevo già Proust grazie ai miei studi universitari, ma non avevo mai letto i suoi versi. L’unico testo letto è stato “Il piacere della lettura” che consiglio sempre ad ogni lettore. Penso che ogni lettore deve leggere questo brevissimo ma intenso saggio. Penso proprio che sia uno dei libri da avere sempre sul comodino perché fa capire tanto. E i suoi versi non sono da meno, sono stati una scoperta inaspettata e meravigliosa.
Proust non fu solo un poeta, oltre alle otto poesie contenute in Les Plaisirs et les Jours e a poche altre sparse su riviste, si tratta di poesie ritrovate negli epistolari o come dediche, in buona parte inedite prima della raccolta francese. Spesso i titoli sono dei curatori, moltissime di queste poesie sono presenti all’interno di questa raccolta poetica in foto.
Dico che Proust non fu un vero poeta perché l'impressione critica generale è che Proust non ci tenesse e le scrivesse soprattutto per scherzo o a imitazione dello stile d'altri, facendo inoltre qualche ritratto di pittore e musicista per il quale provava ammirazione.

[Marion for a Free Palestine · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this is considered a good preview of Proust as a writer I must say I'm not a fan. I felt like I was on a bad date where someone pulls out their journal and asks "would you like to hear my poetry?" No sir, I would not. Some pretty moments but nothing worthy of the hype.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't have a whole lot of supplementary reading beyond the group page posts for the Proust 2013 read along, but this was the one. I saw this dual-language edition of Proust's poems in the bookstore of my brand new grads school university and picked it up. With all the life changes this year, I kept on reading Proust.

These poems, as noted in the introduction, are more ephemeral than In Search of Lost Time since most of them were written somehow attached to letters for friends. The spontaneous side of Proust, something that was most often lacking from In Search of Lost Time, was something I was pleased to see. Most of the poems that were not meant for publication are spontaneous in jokes between Proust and his social circle, and the ones that were meant for publication were in honor of famous artists or musicians. One notable one is a prose poem that echoes very strongly the themes that Proust later explores in Swann's Way.

The dual-language edition was a particularly nice as well. I have just enough high school French to puzzle out what some of the shorter poems were saying, and after reading a prodigious amount of Proust this year it was interesting to see what the original French was compared to the English translation. The subtle differences were a nice touch when reflecting on all of a year of reading Proust.

[Steven Felicelli · Rating 1 out of 5]

This volume begins with a full-throated paean to pederasty, entitled "Pederastie." Thereafter, we get lots of first world rhapsodies and odes to "important" artists like Paulus Potter, Christoph Gluck and one poem being insufficient, we get two about Albert Cuyp. Okay, so its dated and self-absorbed, but the poetry itself, my friends, is absolute shit. In French and English.

[Ludovica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Credo Marcel sia migliore come scrittore che come poeta. So poco di lui e della sua vita quindi ho capito due riferimenti a persone su almeno cinquanta, tuttavia alcune poesie erano carine ed è stata tutto sommato una lettura scorrevole

[Nicolas Mertens · Rating 5 out of 5]

For one of my classes this year I some selections from Swann's Way and Budding Grove and I fell in love with Proust's writing style—typical of most Joycians I'm sure. But of course the problem with falling in love with Proust, especially in university, is not having the time to read 'À la recherche du temps perdu.' This book was really a dream come true, myself an avid poetry lover and at the same time this collection gives so much insight into Proust's life: as a gay man in a time when homosexual activity was outlawed in France, looking at his friends and fellow artists, a variety of styles of writing, his relationships with people, &c. Mon français is not good enough to pick up all the differences in diction between the originals and translations, but good enough to know how beautiful some of it reads and to pick up on the rhyme schemes in the French poems. I realize that not every poem in here is phenomenal, but I think one has to take that into perspective when reading a "collected poetry" book, some of these poems were from Proust's early life as a writer, and guess what, he got better at writing as his life went on. The footnotes at the end are also very well done, taking up the last 1/4 inch of the book.

[Wiktor · Rating 3 out of 5]

O wiele bardziej pasuje mi Proust w prozie, pojedyncze utwory bardzo dobre ale większość do mnie nie przemawia //:

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Proust was not a poet; he did not consider himself to be such, and he had no interest in these poems being published. But, here they are, for all to read. So, where does that leave us when we attempt an assessment? These poems are personal in nature; Proust intended them for the specific people to whom they were written, often playfully, often in haste, simply to scratch out the poetic content that floated across his mind. There isn't much of a sign that he crafted these poems with much intentionality, and the subject matter is too precise to be of much interest. Reading these poems is like reading inside jokes passed between lovers and best friends, they are full of inaccessible lines. One assumes Proust would be aghast at the idea that these poems were out there for mass consumption.

In reality, these are one star poems for the general reader, but were likely five star poems for their intended audience. There is nothing memorable in them for the rest of us, and no reason to ever reread and revisit these poems again, but the people Proust sent them to likely valued them very much. So, it's a three star review for me as I try to split the difference, but had I known more up front that Proust was not a poet, and that he did not take these poems too seriously, I'd likely have passed on this collection and stuck with his prose. Unless one is a completist of Proust's work, that's likely the best course of action.

[Michael Kay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the only reason this doesn't get one star is 'cause of the book itself - as in, the purely physical elements of the book. The quality of the paper is amazing (not something I'd usually care about but you'd need to see it to know what I mean) as well as the presentation, the attention to detail in the editorial notes etc.

However, having not read In Search of Lost Time and not knowing much about the era, particularly not in terms of Proust's social circle, it doesn't really do anything for me. Any supposedly classic volume of poetry will always have a couple of standouts even if the rest is trite (unless its Wordsworth) and this is no exception, but mostly it consists of letters and tributes I don't get. However, Proust clearly doesn't take any of this too seriously, so I guess it gets a point for that.

[Jeanette Cleveland · Rating 5 out of 5]

When this book jumped out at me At the bookstore last week, I was immediately intrigued by its rough appearance. Flipping open to the poem Sonnet, I knew I had to read this book.

After getting it home I did wish I would have examined it further. I loved the poems. They did what poems should do, I feel, have movement , have life, make you think, or completely make zero sense.

The notes at the end I could of did without.

The part I wish I would have known was that the book had their true form also. I would like to hear a few of them in this form. Hopefully my sister still remembers some French. If not then I will have to just leave that part alone.

[Paul H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Impressively bad. If anything, Proust's early poems and short stories give me a strange sort of hope; if the author of Proust's early work could become the author of À la recherche, then the human spirit can accomplish anything.

[Sina Develioglu · Rating 2 out of 5]

The context of why these poems exist is interesting but it only starts to makes sense after you've read A la recherché du le temps perdu. So in my case, most of the poems remained superficial and revealed nothing about the artist´s mind. Still, I'm happy to own this book and more importantly slowly jump on board on the Marcel Proust train :) Without him "Sans Soleil" would not exist.

[Elis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letto all'inizio di questo mese, vi faccio quindi una recensione abbastanza "a caldo". Questa raccolta, ricevuta in omaggio lo scorso anno con un ordine online di libri nella giornata internazionale dedicata alla poesia, presenta sulle pagine sia i testi tradotti in italiano che la loro versione originale in francese.

Devo dire che non è stata una lettura che mi è particolarmente rimasta dentro, non credo di essere del tutto affine allo stile e al modo di comporre di questo autore, ma nemmeno posso dire di aver disprezzato la lettura. Alcuni componimenti mi sono piaciuti più di altri, sicuramente, e si dividono tra poesie che fungono da "ritratti" e descrivono persone, altre dedicate a suoi conoscenti, altre ancora che fanno immergere in sentimenti e sensazioni (specie di malinconia e tristezza, con un certo senso di decadenza).

Le poesie sono, quasi sempre, strutturate in versi piuttosto lunghi e paragrafi abbastanza sostanziosi. Non tutte hanno un titolo. Più che le poesie nel loro complesso, ho apprezzato alcuni "spezzoni" di esse, piccole citazioni come: "L'anima è poesia"; "dunque la gioia è complice della tua pena: l'ardore del vortice accresce la sete di lacrime" oppure "Tutto scancella il tempo, ma gli occhi non li spegne".

Di Proust sicuramente, comunque, non sono le poesie l'opera più famosa. Prima o poi darò una possibilità al suo famoso romanzo "Alla ricerca del tempo perduto": magari scoprirò di essere più affine al Proust romanziere che al Proust poeta.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting as a collection of historical artifacts, but the poems themselves are not particularly good. Many were not intended for public consumption, so it’s hardly a surprise. I’m sure die-hard Proust fans will find much to live here, but for the passing poet it’s missable.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty bad to be honest, but you have to keep in mind that these poems were never meant to be published. The notes on the poems and the people that they were dedicated to seem much more interesting than the poems themselves.

[Alessandro Pizzato · Rating 2 out of 5]

Potevamo farne a meno!

[Tiziana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una raccolta di cui personalmente, potevamo fare a meno.
Sono poche le poesie degne di essere lette.

[tai lyn sandhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant man

[terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

feltrinelli vergognati Proust e Reynaldo Hahn non erano solo amici

[Daniele Mazzucco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belle le poesie, bello il francese ma soprattutto belle le poesie in francese. Se qualcuno volesse consigliarmi altre poesie ben venga.

[Zeli ☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

non male non male

[Calvin]

What jumped out at me I suppose was Proust had no clear cut style as a poet-although his Portraits of author artists seemed to hold to a form of some kind. Whimsical to quite serious it wasnt a relly consistent voice-not that this bothered me. I wish I could read it in the original though, translations always make me leary

[Cristian · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mi parecer tiene más valor como documento, por ser una rarísima colección de poemas de un autor que se dedicó públicamente a la prosa, que por tener calidad poética en sí. Casi disfruté más la introducción que los mismos poemas.

[Aurora Ferraro · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Ecco l'orrore delle cose usuali, e l'insonnia delle prime ore della sera, mentre sopra di me qualcuno sta suonando valzer e sento l'acciottolio irritante dei piatti smossi in un appartamento vicino..."

[Carlo Mayer]

Finiti

[Mugren Ohaly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, it's not as poetic as I thought it would be. Quite a few of them should've just been written out as letters.