The Random House Book of 20th Century French Poetry: Bilingual Edition

By Paul Auster

Book Overview

During the 20th Century, France was home to many of the world's greatest poets. This collection highlights some of the very best verse that came out of a country and century defined by war and liberation. - "Indispensable . . . a book that everyone interested in modern poetry should have close to hand, a source of renewable delights and discoveries, a book that will long claim our attention."--Peter Brooks, The New York Times Book Review

"One of the freshest and most exciting books of poetry to appear in a long while . . . Paul Auster has provided the best possible point of entry into this century's most influential body of poetry."--Geoffrey O'Brien, The Village Voice

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394717481
• ISBN13: 9780394717487
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 688 Pages
• Weight: 1.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Invaluable

Vintage, the publisher, should feel deep, dark, spooky shame for letting this remarkable book go out of print. The reviewer below is misguided in his or her belief that there are more than a few clunkers among the translations: hogwash. Wilbur's rendition of "Le Pont Mirabeau" is an exceptionally musical version of an exceptionally musical poem, and approximates beautifully the Whistleresque mood. To critique Pound's translation is like saying "Damn the Moon, it's full of holes." Sure, but its the Moon. On the whole, this book gets it right, offering an interesting selection of poets and translators (just as there is more than one kind of poet, so too are there different, and equally valid, forms of translation). Seek it out till Bertlesman come to their multinational senses.

GREAT TO HAVE IT, BUT OO-LA-LA! SOME POOR TRANSLATIONS!

Paul Auster chose his poems well, and the bilingual presentation, format, and ordering of the poets are all clear and easy to follow. It's wonderful to have this access to modern French poetry in English. There are two problems, however: First, there are hardly any women poets (I think 1 out of 50 - the unrelenting masculine viewpoint gets tedious, like being trapped in a cigar-smoke-filled men's room). And second, some of the translations are graceless and inaccurate. Mr. Auster's secondary goal was to choose among already-existing translations by American and British poets. Many of these ruin the mood, parallelisms and imagery of the poems. For instance, Apollinaire's "Mirabeau Bridge" is tortured into English rhyme, destroying all subtlety. Milosz's "November Symphony" has had a meaningless name change to "Strophes" by Ezra Pound, who, if he was going to re-name it, should have called it "Truncations", since he seems to have gotten tired and omitted the last third of the poem. All in all, though, I'm very pleased to have it.