Six French Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Lamartine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme

Book Overview

'Poetry will no longer keep in time with action; it will be ahead of it.' Arthur Rimbaud The active and colourful lives of the poets of nineteenth-century France are reflected in the diversity and vibrancy of their works. At once sacred and profane, passionate and satirical, these remarkable and innovative poems explore the complexities of human emotion and ponder the great questions of religion and art. They form as rich a body of work as any one age and language has ever produced. This unique anthology includes generous selections from the six nineteenth-century French poets most often read in the English-speaking world today: Lamartine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarme. Modern translations are printed opposite the original French verse, and the edition contains over a thousand lines of poetry never previously translated into English.

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0199554781
• ISBN13: 9780199554782
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.0" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Ideal for language students

This book is an ideal introduction to some of the most well-known French poets of the period, and has a section with short biographies on each at the front of the book, as well as some background about the state of literary work in France at that point in history, which helps provide context. There's a good selection of well-known and more obscure works from each writer, and its very handy having the English translations on the facing page, so you can simply glance across for aid in understanding the language. When reading Victor Hugo's longer meanderings this is essential as you don't need to distract yourself from the power and beauty of his words to fiddle about with a dictionary. Be aware though, the verse translations into English often sacrifice a lot of the beauty and wordplay of the French in order to shoehorn the general theme into verse form; if you're using this as a language tool, a prose translation might be more useful, or alternatively, keep a dictionary to hand when the two versions part company.

Six Nineteenth Century French Poets

I liked the book, especially that it was in both French and English translation.