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CLASSIC POETRY

«« Previous page · William Blake: The Grey Monk · Kom zijn liefste – over Herman Gorter ( 29 oktober 2020 – Hilversum) · Paul Valéry: Vue · William Blake: To The Muses · Paul Valéry: Hélène · Ambrose Bierce: Chickamauga · Jacques Perk: Eerste aanblik · Emily Dickinson: The Inevitable · Richard Le Gallienne: The Lonely Dancer · Sophie d’Arbouville: Le Poète · Paul Celan: “Etwas ganz und gar Persönliches” – Briefe 1934-1970 · Emilienne d’Alençon: Elégie

»» there is more...

William Blake: The Grey Monk

 

The Grey Monk

“I die, I die!” the Mother said,
“My children die for lack of bread.
What more has the merciless Tyrant said?”
The Monk sat down on the stony bed.

The blood red ran from the Grey Monk’s side,
His hands and feet were wounded wide,
His body bent, his arms and knees
Like to the roots of ancient trees.

His eye was dry; no tear could flow:
A hollow groan first spoke his woe.
He trembled and shudder’d upon the bed;
At length with a feeble cry he said:

“When God commanded this hand to write
In the studious hours of deep midnight,
He told me the writing I wrote should prove
The bane of all that on Earth I lov’d.

My Brother starv’d between two walls,
His Children’s cry my soul appalls;
I mock’d at the rack and griding chain,
My bent body mocks their torturing pain.

Thy father drew his sword in the North,
With his thousands strong he marched forth;
Thy Brother has arm’d himself in steel
To avenge the wrongs thy Children feel.

But vain the Sword and vain the Bow,
They never can work War’s overthrow.
The Hermit’s prayer and the Widow’s tear
Alone can free the World from fear.

For a Tear is an intellectual thing,
And a Sigh is the sword of an Angel King,
And the bitter groan of the Martyr’s woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty’s bow.

The hand of Vengeance found the bed
To which the Purple Tyrant fled;
The iron hand crush’d the Tyrant’s head
And became a Tyrant in his stead.”

William Blake
(1757 – 1827)
The Grey Monk

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More in: Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Blake, William, Tales of Mystery & Imagination


Kom zijn liefste – over Herman Gorter ( 29 oktober 2020 – Hilversum)

Stichting Feest der Poëzie organiseert met Sociëteit “De Unie” Hilversum op donderdag 29 oktober 2020 in de serie Gooise dichters van het Feest der Poëzie een avond over Herman Gorter.

 

Herman Gorter, de dichter van ‘Mei’ (‘Een nieuwe lente en een nieuw geluid…’), woonde een aantal jaren aan de Nieuwe ‘s-Gravelandseweg 66 in Bussum, in een huis naar ontwerp van architect Berlage.

Voordrachtskunstenaar Simon Mulder en soundscape-artiesten Beggar Brahim (elektrische gitaar) en Jesse LaChiffre (klarinet) brengen nummers van de CD ‘Herman Gorter – Verzen 1890’, waarbij de gedichten uit de lyrische, experimentele, sensitivistische periode van classicus, dichter en socialist Herman Gorter, een unieke samenklank aangaan met Beggar Brahims klanklandschappen.

Klassiek muziekduo Marleen van Os en Daan van de Velde brengt bijzondere en nauwelijks uitgevoerde liederen op teksten van Gorter, bijgestaan door sopraan Heleen Oomen.

Stadsdichter Mieke van Zonneveld brengt de gedichten van Gorter die zij als motto’s in haar debuutbundel Leger gebruikte, en de daarbij behorende gedichten.

Verder bijzondere filmbeelden van Gorter van filminstituut Eye en de première van de videoclip ‘In de zwarte nacht’.

Sociëteit “De Unie” Hilversum
donderdag 29 oktober 2020
20:00 – 22:00 uur
s-Gravelandseweg 57
1217 EH Hilversum

Reserveringen worden verzorgd door ticketkantoor.nl

#  Website Stichting Feest der Poëzie

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More in: # Music Archive, #Editors Choice Archiv, Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Art & Literature News, AUDIO, CINEMA, RADIO & TV, Feest der Poëzie, Gorter, Herman


Paul Valéry: Vue

Vue

Si la plage planche, si
L’ombre sur l’œil s’use et pleure
Si l’azur est larme, ainsi
Au sel des dents pure affleure

La vierge fumée ou l’air
Que berce en soi puis expire
Vers l’eau debout d’une mer
Assoupie en son empire

Celle qui sans les ouïr
Si la lèvre au vent remue
Se joue à évanouir
Mille mots vains où se mue

Sous l’humide éclair de dents
Le très doux feu du dedans.

Paul Valéry
(1871-1945)
Vue
Poème

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More in: Archive U-V, Archive U-V, Valéry, Paul


William Blake: To The Muses

 

To The Muses

Whether on Ida’s shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceas’d;

Whether in Heav’n ye wander fair,
Or the green corners of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air,
Where the melodious winds have birth;

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea
Wand’ring in many a coral grove,
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry!

How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoy’d in you!
The languid strings do scarcely move!
The sound is forc’d, the notes are few!

William Blake
(1757 – 1827)
To The Muses

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Blake, William, Tales of Mystery & Imagination


Paul Valéry: Hélène

Hélène

Azur ! c’est moi… Je viens des grottes de la mort
Entendre l’onde se rompre aux degrés sonores,
Et je revois les galères dans les aurores
Ressusciter de l’ombre au fil des rames d’or.

Mes solitaires mains appellent les monarques
Dont la barbe de sel amusait mes doigts purs ;
Je pleurais. Ils chantaient leurs triomphes obscurs
Et les golfes enfuis aux poupes de leurs barques.

J’entends les conques profondes et les clairons
Militaires rythmer le vol des avirons ;
Le chant clair des rameurs enchaîne le tumulte,

Et les Dieux, à la proue héroïque exaltés
Dans leur sourire antique et que l’écume insulte,
Tendent vers moi leurs bras indulgents et sculptés.

Paul Valéry
(1871-1945)
Hélène
Poème

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: Archive U-V, Archive U-V, Valéry, Paul


Ambrose Bierce: Chickamauga

Chickamauga

One sunny autumn afternoon a child strayed away from its rude home in a small field and entered a forest unobserved. It was happy in a new sense of freedom from control, happy in the opportunity of exploration and adventure; for this child’s spirit, in bodies of its ancestors, had for thousands of years been trained to memorable feats of discovery and conquest—victories in battles whose critical moments were centuries, whose victors’ camps were cities of hewn stone. From the cradle of its race it had conquered its way through two continents and passing a great sea had penetrated a third, there to be born to war and dominion as a heritage.

The child was a boy aged about six years, the son of a poor planter. In his younger manhood the father had been a soldier, had fought against naked savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of a civilized race to the far South. In the peaceful life of a planter the warrior-fire survived; once kindled, it is never extinguished. The man loved military books and pictures and the boy had understood enough to make himself a wooden sword, though even the eye of his father would hardly have known it for what it was. This weapon he now bore bravely, as became the son of an heroic race, and pausing now and again in the sunny space of the forest assumed, with some exaggeration, the postures of aggression and defense that he had been taught by the engraver’s art. Made reckless by the ease with which he overcame invisible foes attempting to stay his advance, he committed the common enough military error of pushing the pursuit to a dangerous extreme, until he found himself upon the margin of a wide but shallow brook, whose rapid waters barred his direct advance against the flying foe that had crossed with illogical ease. But the intrepid victor was not to be baffled; the spirit of the race which had passed the great sea burned unconquerable in that small breast and would not be denied. Finding a place where some bowlders in the bed of the stream lay but a step or a leap apart, he made his way across and fell again upon the rear-guard of his imaginary foe, putting all to the sword.

Now that the battle had been won, prudence required that he withdraw to his base of operations. Alas; like many a mightier conqueror, and like one, the mightiest, he could not

curb the lust for war,
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.

Advancing from the bank of the creek he suddenly found himself confronted with a new and more formidable enemy: in the path that he was following, sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before it, a rabbit! With a startled cry the child turned and fled, he knew not in what direction, calling with inarticulate cries for his mother, weeping, stumbling, his tender skin cruelly torn by brambles, his little heart beating hard with terror—breathless, blind with tears—lost in the forest! Then, for more than an hour, he wandered with erring feet through the tangled undergrowth, till at last, overcome by fatigue, he lay down in a narrow space between two rocks, within a few yards of the stream and still grasping his toy sword, no longer a weapon but a companion, sobbed himself to sleep. The wood birds sang merrily above his head; the squirrels, whisking their bravery of tail, ran barking from tree to tree, unconscious of the pity of it, and somewhere far away was a strange, muffed thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in celebration of nature’s victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and black were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother’s heart was breaking for her missing child.

Hours passed, and then the little sleeper rose to his feet. The chill of the evening was in his limbs, the fear of the gloom in his heart. But he had rested, and he no longer wept. With some blind instinct which impelled to action he struggled through the undergrowth about him and came to a more open ground—on his right the brook, to the left a gentle acclivity studded with infrequent trees; over all, the gathering gloom of twilight. A thin, ghostly mist rose along the water. It frightened and repelled him; instead of recrossing, in the direction whence he had come, he turned his back upon it, and went forward toward the dark inclosing wood. Suddenly he saw before him a strange moving object which he took to be some large animal—a dog, a pig—he could not name it; perhaps it was a bear. He had seen pictures of bears, but knew of nothing to their discredit and had vaguely wished to meet one. But something in form or movement of this object—something in the awkwardness of its approach—told him that it was not a bear, and curiosity was stayed by fear. He stood still and as it came slowly on gained courage every moment, for he saw that at least it had not the long menacing ears of the rabbit. Possibly his impressionable mind was half conscious of something familiar in its shambling, awkward gait. Before it had approached near enough to resolve his doubts he saw that it was followed by another and another. To right and to left were many more; the whole open space about him were alive with them—all moving toward the brook.

They were men. They crept upon their hands and knees. They used their hands only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms hanging idle at their sides. They strove to rise to their feet, but fell prone in the attempt. They did nothing naturally, and nothing alike, save only to advance foot by foot in the same direction. Singly, in pairs and in little groups, they came on through the gloom, some halting now and again while others crept slowly past them, then resuming their movement. They came by dozens and by hundreds; as far on either hand as one could see in the deepening gloom they extended and the black wood behind them appeared to be inexhaustible. The very ground seemed in motion toward the creek. Occasionally one who had paused did not again go on, but lay motionless. He was dead. Some, pausing, made strange gestures with their hands, erected their arms and lowered them again, clasped their heads; spread their palms upward, as men are sometimes seen to do in public prayer.

Not all of this did the child note; it is what would have been noted by an elder observer; he saw little but that these were men, yet crept like babes. Being men, they were not terrible, though unfamiliarly clad. He moved among them freely, going from one to another and peering into their faces with childish curiosity. All their faces were singularly white and many were streaked and gouted with red. Something in this—something too, perhaps, in their grotesque attitudes and movements—reminded him of the painted clown whom he had seen last summer in the circus, and he laughed as he watched them. But on and ever on they crept, these maimed and bleeding men, as heedless as he of the dramatic contrast between his laughter and their own ghastly gravity. To him it was a merry spectacle. He had seen his father’s negroes creep upon their hands and knees for his amusement—had ridden them so, “making believe” they were his horses. He now approached one of these crawling figures from behind and with an agile movement mounted it astride. The man sank upon his breast, recovered, flung the small boy fiercely to the ground as an unbroken colt might have done, then turned upon him a face that lacked a lower jaw—from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, gave this man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and breast by the blood of its quarry. The man rose to his knees, the child to his feet. The man shook his fist at the child; the child, terrified at last, ran to a tree near by, got upon the farther side of it and took a more serious view of the situation. And so the clumsy multitude dragged itself slowly and painfully along in hideous pantomime—moved forward down the slope like a swarm of great black beetles, with never a sound of going—in silence profound, absolute.

Instead of darkening, the haunted landscape began to brighten. Through the belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light, the trunks and branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It struck the creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured their movements on the lit grass. It fell upon their faces, touching their whiteness with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which so many of them were freaked and maculated. It sparkled on buttons and bits of metal in their clothing. Instinctively the child turned toward the growing splendor and moved down the slope with his horrible companions; in a few moments had passed the foremost of the throng—not much of a feat, considering his advantages. He placed himself in the lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march, conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as if to see that his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before had such a following.

Scattered about upon the ground now slowly narrowing by the encroachment of this awful march to water, were certain articles to which, in the leader’s mind, were coupled no significant associations: an occasional blanket tightly rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together with a string; a heavy knapsack here, and there a broken rifle—such things, in short, as are found in the rear of retreating troops, the “spoor” of men flying from their hunters. Everywhere near the creek, which here had a margin of lowland, the earth was trodden into mud by the feet of men and horses. An observer of better experience in the use of his eyes would have noticed that these footprints pointed in both directions; the ground had been twice passed over—in advance and in retreat. A few hours before, these desperate, stricken men, with their more fortunate and now distant comrades, had penetrated the forest in thousands. Their successive battalions, breaking into swarms and reforming in lines, had passed the child on every side—had almost trodden on him as he slept. The rustle and murmur of their march had not awakened him. Almost within a stone’s throw of where he lay they had fought a battle; but all unheard by him were the roar of the musketry, the shock of the cannon, “the thunder of the captains and the shouting.” He had slept through it all, grasping his little wooden sword with perhaps a tighter clutch in unconscious sympathy with his martial environment, but as heedless of the grandeur of the struggle as the dead who had died to make the glory.

The fire beyond the belt of woods on the farther side of the creek, reflected to earth from the canopy of its own smoke, was now suffusing the whole landscape. It transformed the sinuous line of mist to the vapor of gold. The water gleamed with dashes of red, and red, too, were many of the stones protruding above the surface. But that was blood; the less desperately wounded had stained them in crossing. On them, too, the child now crossed with eager steps; he was going to the fire. As he stood upon the farther bank he turned about to look at the companions of his march. The advance was arriving at the creek. The stronger had already drawn themselves to the brink and plunged their faces into the flood. Three or four who lay without motion appeared to have no heads. At this the child’s eyes expanded with wonder; even his hospitable understanding could not accept a phenomenon implying such vitality as that. After slaking their thirst these men had not had the strength to back away from the water, nor to keep their heads above it. They were drowned. In rear of these, the open spaces of the forest showed the leader as many formless figures of his grim command as at first; but not nearly so many were in motion. He waved his cap for their encouragement and smilingly pointed with his weapon in the direction of the guiding light—a pillar of fire to this strange exodus.

Confident of the fidelity of his forces, he now entered the belt of woods, passed through it easily in the red illumination, climbed a fence, ran across a field, turning now and again to coquet with his responsive shadow, and so approached the blazing ruin of a dwelling. Desolation everywhere! In all the wide glare not a living thing was visible. He cared nothing for that; the spectacle pleased, and he danced with glee in imitation of the wavering flames. He ran about, collecting fuel, but every object that he found was too heavy for him to cast in from the distance to which the heat limited his approach. In despair he flung in his sword—a surrender to the superior forces of nature. His military career was at an end.

Shifting his position, his eyes fell upon some outbuildings which had an oddly familiar appearance, as if he had dreamed of them. He stood considering them with wonder, when suddenly the entire plantation, with its inclosing forest, seemed to turn as if upon a pivot. His little world swung half around; the points of the compass were reversed. He recognized the blazing building as his own home!

For a moment he stood stupefied by the power of the revelation, then ran with stumbling feet, making a half-circuit of the ruin. There, conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a woman—the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles—the work of a shell.

The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries—something between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey—a startling, soulless, unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child was a deaf mute.

Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the wreck.

Ambrose Bierce
(1842-1914)
Chickamauga

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Bierce, Ambrose, Bierce, Ambrose


Jacques Perk: Eerste aanblik

Eerste aanblik

En peinzend zie ‘k uw zee-blauwe oogen pralen,
Waarin de deernis kwijnt, de liefde droomt, –
En weet niet wat mij door mijn adren stroomt:
Ik zie naar u en kan niet ademhalen:

Een gouden waterval van zonnestralen
Heeft nooit een zachter aangezicht bezoomd…
‘t Is of me een engel heeft verwellekoomd,
Die met een paradijs op aard kwam dalen.

‘k Gevoel mij machtig tot u aangedreven
En buiten mij. ‘k Was dood, ik ben herrezen,
En voel mij tusschen zijn en niet-zijn zweven:

Wat hebt gij, tooveres, mij goed belezen!
Aan u en aan uwe oogen hangt mijn leven:
Een diepe rust vervult geheel mijn wezen. –

Jacques Perk
(1859 – 1881)
Eerste aanblik

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More in: Archive O-P, CLASSIC POETRY, Jacques Perk


Emily Dickinson: The Inevitable

The Inevitable

While I was fearing it, it came,
But came with less of fear,
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it dear.
There is a fitting a dismay,
A fitting a despair.
’Tis harder knowing it is due,
Than knowing it is here.
The trying on the utmost,
The morning it is new,
Is terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.

Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)
The Inevitable (Poem)

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More in: Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Dickinson, Emily


Richard Le Gallienne: The Lonely Dancer

 

The Lonely Dancer

I had no heart to join the dance,
I danced it all so long ago–
Ah! light-winged music out of France,
Let other feet glide to and fro,
Weaving new patterns of romance
For bosoms of new-fallen snow.

But leave me thus where I may hear
The leafy rustle of the waltz,
The shell-like murmur in my ear,
The silken whisper fairy-false
Of unseen rainbows circling near,
And the glad shuddering of the walls.

Another dance the dancers spin,
A shadow-dance of mystic pain,
And other partners enter in
And dance within my lonely brain–
The swaying woodland shod in green,
The ghostly dancers of the rain;

The lonely dancers of the sea,
Foam-footed on the sandy bar,
The wizard dance of wind and tree,
The eddying dance of stream and star;
Yea, all these dancers tread for me
A measure mournful and bizarre:

An echo-dance where ear is eye,
And sound evokes the shapes of things,
Where out of silence and a sigh
The sad world like a picture springs,
As, when some secret bird sweeps by,
We see it in the sound of wings.

Those human feet upon the floor,
That eager pulse of rhythmic breath,–
How sadly to an unknown shore
Each silver footfall hurryeth;
A dance of autumn leaves, no more,
On the fantastic wind of death.

Fire clasped to elemental fire,
‘Tis thus the solar atom whirls;
The butterfly in aery gyre,
On autumn mornings, swarms and swirls,
In dance of delicate desire,
No other than these boys and girls.

The same strange music everywhere,
The woven paces just the same,
Dancing from out the viewless air
Into the void from whence they came;
Ah! but they make a gallant flare
Against the dark, each little flame!

And what if all the meaning lies
Just in the music, not in those
Who dance thus with transfigured eyes,
Holding in vain each other close;
Only the music never dies,
The dance goes on,–the dancer goes.

A woman dancing, or a world
Poised on one crystal foot afar,
In shining gulfs of silence whirled,
Like notes of the strange music are;
Small shape against another curled,
Or dancing dust that makes a star.

To him who plays the violin
All one it is who joins the reel,
Drops from the dance, or enters in;
So that the never-ending wheel
Cease not its mystic course to spin,
For weal or woe, for woe or weal.

Richard Le Gallienne
(1866 – 1947)
The Lonely Dancer
From: The lonely Dancer and other Poems, 1913

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Gallienne, Richard Le


Sophie d’Arbouville: Le Poète

 

Le Poète
ODE
(Couronnée aux jeux floraux)

Des longs ennuis du jour quand le soir me délivre,
Poète aux chants divins, j’ouvre en rêvant ton livre,
Je me recueille en toi, dans l’ombre et loin du bruit ;
De ton monde idéal, j’ose aborder la rive :
Tes chants que je répète, à mon âme attentive
Semblent plus purs la nuit !

Mais qu’il reste caché, ce trouble de mon âme,
De moi rien ne t’émeut, ni louange, ni blâme.
Quelques hivers à peine ont passé sur mon front…
Et qu’importe à ta muse, en tous lieux adorée,
Qu’au sein de ses foyers une femme ignorée
S’attendrisse à ton nom !

Qui te dira qu’aux sons de ta lyre sublime,
À ses accords divins, ma jeune âme s’anime,
Laissant couler ensemble et ses vers et ses pleurs ?
Quand près de moi ta muse un instant s’est posée,
Je chante…. ainsi le ciel, en versant sa rosée,
Entr’ouvre quelques fleurs.

Poètes ! votre sort est bien digne d’envie.
Le Dieu qui nous créa vous fit une autre vie,
L’horizon ne sert point de limite à vos yeux,
D’un univers plus grand vous sondez le mystère,
Et quand, pauvres mortels, nous vivons sur la terre,
Vous vivez dans les cieux !

Et si, vous éloignant des voûtes éternelles,
Vous descendez vers nous pour reposer vos ailes,
Notre monde à vos yeux se dévoile plus pur ;
L’hiver garde des fleurs, les bois un vert feuillage,
La rose son parfum, les oiseaux leur ramage,
Et le ciel son azur.

Si Dieu, vous révélant les maux de l’existence,
Au milieu de vos chants fait naître la souffrance,
Votre âme, en sa douleur poursuivant son essor,
Comme au temps des beaux jours vibre dans ses alarmes ;
Le monde s’aperçoit, quand vous montrez vos larmes,
Que vous chantez encor !

Le malheur se soumet aux formes du génie,
En passant par votre âme, il devient harmonie.
Votre plainte s’exhale en sons mélodieux.
L’ouragan qui, la nuit, rugit et se déchaîne,
S’il rencontre en son cours la harpe éolienne,
Devient harmonieux.

Moi, sur mes jeunes ans j’ai vu gronder l’orage,
Le printemps fut sans fleurs, et l’été, sans ombrage ;
Aucun ange du ciel n’a regardé mes pleurs.
Que ne puis-je, changeant l’absinthe en ambroisie,
Comme vous, aux accords d’un chant de poésie
Endormir mes douleurs !

À notre âme, ici-bas , il n’est rien qui réponde ;
Poètes inspirés, montrez-nous votre monde !
À ce vaste désert, venez nous arracher.
Pour le divin banquet votre table se dresse…
Oh ! laissez, de la coupe où vous puisez l’ivresse,
Mes lèvres s’approcher !

Oui, penchez jusqu’à moi voire main que j’implore ;
Votre coupe est trop loin, baissez, baissez encore !…
Répandez dans mes vers l’encens inspirateur.
Pour monter jusqu’à vous, mon pied tremble et chancelle…
Poètes ! descendez, et portez sur votre aile
Une timide sœur !

Sophie d’Arbouville
(1810-1850)
Le Poète. Ode
Poésies et nouvelles (1840)

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Paul Celan: “Etwas ganz und gar Persönliches” – Briefe 1934-1970

Paul Celan, der meistgedeutete deutschsprachige Dichter nach 1945, ist auch der Autor eines eminenten Briefwerks.

Mit dieser Ausgabe wird es nun erstmals als eigenes Werk sichtbar: in 691 Briefen, davon 330 bisher unpubliziert, an 252 Adressaten. Wer sind die Adressaten? Es sind die Mitglieder der Familie, geliebte Frauen, befreundete Autoren, sehr junge und begeisterte Leser, Übersetzerkollegen, französische Philosophen ebenso wie deutsche Germanisten und die Mitarbeiter vieler Verlage. Aus alledem entsteht in chronologischer Folge über vier Jahrzehnte ein Leben aus Briefen.

In ihnen zeigt sich Celan als herausragender Korrespondenzpartner mit einer enormen stilistischen Bandbreite, ausgeprägt in seiner Fähigkeit, auch auf Unbekannte einzugehen. Die Briefe offenbaren eine Vielzahl bisher verborgener biografischer Fakten, ermöglichen eine Präzisierung seiner Poetologie und zeigen ihn zugleich als Menschen in seinem ganz gewöhnlichen Alltag.

Das Jahr 2020 steht ganz im Zeichen von Paul Celan: Am 20. April jährte sich sein Todestag zum fünfzigsten Mal, und am 23. November 2020 wäre einer der wichtigsten deutschsprachigen Dichter nach 1945 einhundert Jahre alt geworden.

Paul Celan wurde als Paul Antschel am 23. November 1920 als einziger Sohn deutschsprachiger, jüdischer Eltern im damals rumänischen Czernowitz geboren. Nach dem Abitur 1938 begann Celan ein Medizinstudium in Frankreich, kehrte jedoch ein Jahr später nach Rumänien zurück, um dort Romanistik zu studieren. 1942 wurden Paul Celans Eltern deportiert. Im selben Herbst starb sein Vater in einem Lager an Typhus, seine Mutter wurde erschossen. Von 1942 bis 1944 musste Celan in verschiedenen rumänischen Arbeitslagern Zwangsarbeit leisten.
Von 1945 bis 1947 arbeitete er als Lektor und Übersetzer in Bukarest, wo auch erste Gedichte von Celan erschienen. Im Juli 1948 zog er von Wien aus nach Paris, wo der Dichter bis zu seinem Tod lebte. Dort lernte Celan 1951 die Künstlerin Gisèle de Lestrange kennen, die er ein Jahr später heiratete. Ihr gemeinsamer Sohn Eric kam 1955 zur Welt. Im Frühjahr 1970 nahm sich Celan in der Seine das Leben. (Suhrkamp Verlag)

“Dieses aus- und eindrucksvolle Mosaik ist die große Leistung der Herausgeberin Barbara Wiedemann, die schon so viele Publikationen zu Paul Celan verantwortet hat.” – Martin Oehlen, Frankfurter Rundschau

Paul Celan
“Etwas ganz und gar Persönliches”
Briefe 1934-1970
Herausgegeben und kommentiert von Barbara Wiedemann
Deutschsprachig
Leinen
Literatur
Suhrkamp Verlag
1286 Seiten
78,00 €
Erschienen: 14.12.2019
ISBN: 978-3-518-42888-7

# new books
Paul Celan
Briefe 1934-1970

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More in: - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Bachmann, Ingeborg, Celan, Paul, Paul Celan


Emilienne d’Alençon: Elégie

 

 Elégie

L’allée est ténébreuse, et le ciel est mystique;
L’Aphrodita de marbre étend son beau corps nu,
Le gazon est humide et luisant, il a plu…
Sur le gravier s’allonge une ombre fantastique.

L’amour a, par moments, besoin de s’exiler;
Et c’est pourquoi, ce soir, plaisir ou délivrance,
Nous allons à pas lents, baignés dans du silence,
Rechercher la tendresse au jardin isolé.

Douceur de vivre à deux, un soir de lassitude!
O vivre près de toi! bonheur sans lendemain!
Tu m’aimes aujourd’hui – m’aimeras-tu demain?
Et mon soupir a, seul, troublé la solitude.

Cependant on perçoit un long pas, qui nous suit,
Propice à conserver l’illusison divine,
Un pas léger, un as flottant, que l’on devine:
C’est l’ombre de l’amour, dans l’ombre de la nuit.

Emilienne d’Alençon
(1869-1946)
Elégie

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More in: Archive A-B, Archive A-B, d'Alençon, Émilienne


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