French Symbolist Poetry, 50th Anniversary Edition, Bilingual Edition

by C.F. MacIntyre (Translator)

Whether viewed as an influence or in and for themselves, the Symbolists are a tantalizing group. Paralleling similar movements in art and music, their intensely personal poetry leans more heavily on oblique suggestions and evocation than on overt statement. It sets its perceptions, intuitive and nonrational, squarely against intellectual and scientific thinking―and this with a music that is flexible, intrepid, and subtle, sometimes even dissonant and jazzy. But the poetry itself is the movement's best definition.

Here with bilingual text en face, an introduction, and illuminating notes, are some forty carefully selected poems of that movement. They range from the remote beginnings in Nerval and Baudelaire, through the humor and irony of Corbière and Laforgue, to the technical brilliance of Valéry, who died as recently as 1945. For those who wish an overall view of the movement, this is a generous sampling.

Genres: Poetry, France, Literature

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1966

Reviews

[Kamakana]

if you like this review, i now have we bite: www.michaelkamakana.com

210419: poetry is untranslatable. yes so my french is slowly coming back, so i miss who knows how much language-specific aspects, so i am far from fluent reading though of course terribly impressive to anglophones that i speak any french, try to read any french, and then just terrible to francophones as i massacre spoken language... but every language believes it is able to say something or someway that no other language can, so poetry is that saying. everything sounds better in french, or german, or hindi, or mandarin, or cantonese, or...

poetry is language. on gr i have little on my poetry bookshelf partly because i do not presently read much, because i do not have fond memories of poetry read at u many years (decades...) ago, or more particularly litcrit which seemed particularly annoying, dated years if not centuries past, was only in english, meant much to someone but not me... and then again, maybe my memory is as ‘selective’ as my mom asserts... then as now. and i am soon more interested in philosophy ‘of’ rather than actual poetry. in any language. so i read translated french poetry/philosophy, i read translated japanese poetry/philosophy, i read translated chinese poetry/philosophy... none of which i can possibly read in original. aside from script, i cannot even guess at what this or that means... french on the other, is close enough to english and maybe i remember enough to try...

poetry is fun. well it should be. music is probably fun, too: did not listen to much young, hs, u, since... just had guitarist friend explain how for example strings work etc... but i understand poetry is music, so maybe this helps. and as you learn what you practice in physical activities eg. sport, you probably learn what you read in language activities eg. writing. i write this review in english because well this is for anglos interested and my written french is terrible. i hope reading french esp. poetry will help. i am reading some but mostly books from the u library... so far, this is work read previously in english and then nonfiction or robbe-grillet is easier because it is all present-tense and metaphor, poetry, dialog, slang, is not very important... as french prof once known says just read and you will learn as you learned english as child...

150515: now this is the kind of poetry i like, it is only a four because my french is not so good. but now I have a selection of poets to read... great to have the original untranslated on the previous page...

[Suraj Alva]

I engendered a hate for poetry after reading contemporary American poets. This totally changed when I discovered Mallarme. And it was through this book that I had my first glimpse into the wonders of Mallarme and his fellow symbolists.

[Caleb Lail]

I didn’t love the poetry in the collection. I perhaps am not suited for symbolism. I did particularly enjoy LaForgue’s work! And the French language lined up with the English translation is nice; unfortunately, without the capacity to read French, a lot of the real life of these poems seems to be lost. I’m not a fan of translated novels, but translated poetry makes so much less sense.

[Jade Aslain]

I'm sorry but these translations are terrible! MacIntyre changed the poetry far too much just to preserve rhyme scheme. One should not sacrifice the semantic integrity of a symbolist work for a rhyme scheme, especially when the rhymes themselves are not even the same, do not hold a candle to the original. Prefer Mary Ann Caws.

[Jherane Patmore]

I can still read French! (ish) Lol. The translations were helpful but I was delighted at the times I found I didn't need them.
Technicalities aside, I did enjoy this collection of (politically and religiously offensive) poetry. A great piece of historical art, I'm glad I stumbled across.

[Richard]

Symbolists, Decadents, Satanists?
hey, I'm all for it.

[Ryan Thomas]

Found this all wet and crumpled up on the road when I first got to Boston. Amazzziiiing

[Mina Repice]

Great poetry! It’s lowkey crazy how much difference there is between the original poems and the English translations to keep the rhyme schemes though

[Leonard]

If you ever wanted to review French Symbolist Poetry without making too large an investment of your resources, this book might be the place to start. It's in French and English.

[Mills College Library]

841.8082 M1527 1958