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Paul Verlaine: Selected Poems (Oxford World's Classics)

Verlaine ranks alongside Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Rimbaud as one of the most influential poets of late nineteenth-century France. Remarkable not only for his exquisitely crafted verse, Verlaine is also the poet of strong emotions and appetites, with an unrivalled gift for the sheer music of poetry, and an inventive approach to its technique. This bilingual edition provides the most comprehensive selection of his poetry yet, offering some 170 poems in lively and fresh translations. It also offers a lucid introduction which illuminates Verlaine's poetic form within the context of French Impressionism and the poetry of sensation.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Series: Oxford World's Classics

Paperback: 368 pages

Publisher: Oxford University Press; Reissue edition (April 15, 2009)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0199554013

ISBN-13: 978-0199554010

Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 0.8 x 5.1 inches

Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #470,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #68 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Regional & Cultural > European > French #358 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Literature > World Literature > European #495 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > European > French

This is the poem in the original French:Une aube affaiblieVerse par les champsLa mélancolieDes soleils couchants.La mélancolieBerce de doux chantsMon coeur qui s'oublieAux soleils couchants.Et d'étranges rêvesComme des soleilsCouchants sur les grèves,Fantômes vermeils,Défilent sans trêves,Défilent, pareilsÀ des grands soleilsCouchants sur les grèves.This is Martin Sorrell's English translation for this Oxford World Classics edition:Setting SunsA sickly dawnSpreads over the fieldsThe sadnessesLull with soft songsMy heart lost inThe setting suns.And then strange dreamsWhich seem like sunsThat set on shoresVermilion ghostsDrift endlesslyReminding meOf mighty sunsThat set on shores.This translation, to my mind, goes a fair way to destroying the poem. The four stars are for Verlaine's poems, given in the original French here, and emphatically not for Sorrell's translations. In his introductory "Note On The Text And Translation", Sorrell states that other translations suffer from an "over-reverence for the original" and seem "stuck in the past" whereas he seeks to produce "poems appropriate to the climate of late twentieth-century English-language writing."When I first heard this poem, it was in Paris in 2005, sung by a Sorbonne student to a guitar. Every subsequent time I heard the poem whilst in France it was in a song, often accompanied by a guitar, piano or, one time, a synthesizer. All of these versions showed a deep "over-reverence?

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