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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
L’écrivain et poète Paul Verlaine, né à Metz le 30 mars 1844 et mort à Paris le 8 janvier 1896, est un archétype du ‘poète maudit,’ et le principal représentant en France de la tendance ‘décadente’ ou ‘fin de siècle.’ Sa vie fut émaillée par un mariage raté, la fréquentation de prostituées, des amours homosexuelles, dont une liaison tumultueuse avec Arthur Rimbaud, enfin l’excès d’alcool, qui le conduisait souvent à des comportements violents. Sa conversion au catholicisme ne freina pas sa débauche, il assumait cette contradiction, il avait sa foi, mais celle-ci ne pouvait pas l’empêcher de pécher. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
On June 9, 1978, the Rolling Stones released the album Some Girls, which reached number 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The band recorded the album songs, and many more, at EMI’s Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris. Some of these other songs were released later. Among them, the song “So Young” appeared in 1994 as the B-side of a Dutch single. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Ma sixième et dernière sélection du livre Poèmes d’enfants publié par l’École Freinet (Casterman, 1975) présente trois poèmes écrits par une fille au cours d’une année, exprimant une sensibilité à fleur de peau. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Romances between teachers and their adolescent pupils must be frequent, and indeed they are the topic of many popular songs.
The British rock band The Police released in September 1980 the song “Don’t Stand So Close To Me,” written by their lead singer Sting, as the lead single from their third album Zenyatta Mondatta. It won the 1982 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. It is about the temptation of a love affair between a schoolgirl and her teacher, “This girl is half his age” and the song alludes to “That book by Nabakov” (I keep the bad spelling). Before joining The Police, Sting had previously worked as an English teacher, and he had noticed 15-year-old girls fancying him. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
“L’Heure des enfants” est une adaptation française par Jean Aicard du poème “The Children’s Hour” de Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Il fait partie du recueil La Chanson de l’Enfant. Trois petites filles assaillent leur père, lui grimpent dessus pour le couvrir de baisers et de caresses. Il ne peut que capituler sans conditions. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
