Five Great Odes

by Paul Claudel, Jonathan Geltner (Translator)

Paul Claudel’s Five Great Odes constitutes one of the great twentieth-century achievements in lyric poetry. Equally earthy and prayerful, the gathered windfall of erotic and religious crises in the poet’s life, perennially and universally relevant in their ecological and sacramental vision, the Odes deserve to be celebrated alongside T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies. The Five Great Odes are rendered here in English for the first time in more than fifty years.

Genres: Poetry, Catholic

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

Paul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholic faith.