I found a delightful book of verse in a quite indirect way. A 13 years old poetess who celebrated the 7th birthday of a little girl led, through an artist who photographed and painted girls aged between 8 and 12, to a poet who loved girls aged 16. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Category: Poetry
À Mlle Renée Zilcken, par Paul Verlaine
Philippe Zilcken (1857–1930), peintre et graveur néerlandais, était un ami de Paul Verlaine, dont il fit un portrait. En novembre 1892, Verlaine se rendit à La Haye pour rendre visite à Zilcken et son ami le peintre Jan Toorop. Ce voyage fut relaté dans son texte Quinze jours en Hollande, publié en 1893. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Le jardin des secrets
Voici dix-huit mois que vit Poets and Lovers, toujours debout, là où d’autres tombent ou s’endorment. Il vit, brûle et grandit, se nourrissant de secrets… secrets intimes, secrets enfouis et partagés de toute l’humanité. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Dreams of a lonely lighthouse
Under lockdown, many people lived through Internet, physically separated from the outer world, and regular readers of this blog were probably more assiduous in their visits, waiting eagerly for the next post scheduled three days after the preceding one. Accordingly, floating in a virtual world, I spent much time searching the Web and preparing new posts.
Meanwhile, for many, love, deprived from physical contact, living at distance, became an ideality, filling dreams and desires.
My Love and I took hands and swore,
Against the world, to be
Poets and lovers evermore,
To laugh and dream on Lethe’s shore.— Michael Field (Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper), “It was deep April, and the morn,” in Underneath the Bough (1893)
Poets and Lovers exists since one year and a half, it was born privately on March 17, 2019, becoming public on the 20th. This its 218th post. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Toute grâce et toutes nuances, par Paul Verlaine
En 1869, Paul Verlaine rencontre Mathilde Mauté, alors âgée de 16 ans, dont il tombe amoureux. Elle lui inspire les 21 poèmes de sa collection La Bonne Chanson, dont la composition s’échelonne de l’hiver 1869 au printemps 1870, et publiée en 1870 à compte d’auteur chez Alphonse Lemerre. Ils se marient le 11 août 1870. Leur mariage se délitera rapidement, surtout après la liaison de Verlaine avec Arthur Rimbaud. Le couple se sépare en 1874, et Mathilde divorce en 1885, suite à la promulgation d’une loi le permettant. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Nous sommes sept, par Jean Aicard
Le poème « Nous sommes sept » par Jean Aicard fait partie du recueil La Chanson de l’Enfant. C’est une adaptation française du poème « We are Seven » de William Wordsworth.
Une petite fille y parle de sa famille, en particulier de son frère et de sa sœur tous deux morts et enterrés près de sa chaumière, mais qui font toujours partie de sa famille, au même titre que les vivants. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
She came and went, by James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) was an American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat, who knew some fame through his literary criticism and satirical works. On December 26, 1844 he married Maria White, who wrote poetry and was active in the anti-slavery movement. She convinced him to join the abolitionist cause, and he devoted to it a large part of his writings. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Printemps et Été, par Paul Verlaine
L’expression ‘poète maudit’ désigne un poète incompris, chez qui le génie se mêle à un comportement asocial, s’illustrant par la bizarrerie, la provocation, la consommation d’alcool et de drogues, voire la sexualité débridée ; aussi ce n’est généralement qu’après sa mort qu’il connaitra la notoriété. On doit ce qualificatif à Paul Verlaine, qui publia en 1884 l’essai Les Poètes maudits, présentant trois auteurs insuffisamment connus : Tristan Corbière, Arthur Rimbaud et Stéphane Mallarmé. La troisième édition de 1888 en rajouta trois autres : Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam et… lui-même, sous l’anagramme Pauvre Lelian. Il ne pouvait en effet se cacher qu’il représentait l’archétype du poète maudit. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
We are Seven, by William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (b. 7 April 1770, d. 23 April 1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (b. 21 October 1772, d. 25 July 1834) are major English Romantic poets. In 1798 they published together the collection Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems, which helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature. A well-known poem in that collection is the 10th, written by Wordsworth (except perhaps the first stanza written by Coleridge), titled “We are Seven.” CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Robert Louis Stevenson’s poetic rendition of Martial’s epigrams on Erotion
In a previous post, I presented the three epigrams by the Latin poet Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis) devoted to Erotion, a little slave girl who died six days before her sixth birthday, and whom he loved tenderly.
The Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) is famous for his novels, such as Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but also for his travel books. He wrote some poetry, part of which was published posthumously. In particular, he adapted the three epigrams by Martial into poems, of which he kept the manuscripts; they were published more than twenty years after his death. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…