Paul Verlaine

thumb|right|What have you done, you standing thereIn floods of tears?Tell me what you have doneWith your young life? Paul-Marie Verlaine (March 30 1844 – January 8 1896) was a French Symbolist poet. He is often characterized as a poète maudit and an example of fin-de-siècle decadence in literature. Quotes thumb|right|By far the worst painIs not to understandWhy without love or hateMy heart's full of pain. Translations and page-numbers are from Martin Sorrell (trans.) Selected Poems (Oxford University Press, 1999) thumb|right|When you choose your words, no need to searchIn strict dictionaries for pinpointDefinitions. Better the subtleAnd heady Songs of Imprecision. Les sanglots longsDes violonsDe l'automneBlessent mon cœurD'une langueurMonotone. The long sobs ofThe violinsOf autumnLay waste my heartWith monotonesOf boredom. "Chanson d'automne", line 1, from Poèmes saturniens (1866); Sorrell p. 24 Et je m'en vaisAu vent mauvaisQui m'emporteDeçà, delà,Pareil à laFeuille morte. And so I leaveOn cruel windsSquallingAnd gusting meLike a dead leafFalling. "Chanson d'automne", line 13, from Poèmes saturniens (1866); Sorrell p. 27 La lune blancheLuit dans les bois;De chaque branchePart une voixSous la ramée. White moon gleamingAmong trees,From every branchSound rising intoCanopies. "La lune blanche", line 1, from La Bonne Chanson (1872); Sorrell p. 57 Il pleure dans mon cœur Comme il pleut sur la ville.Quelle est cette langueurQui pénètre mon cœur? Falling tears in my heart,Falling rain on the town.Why this long ache,A knife in my heart. "Il pleur dans mon cœur" line 1, from Romances sans paroles (1874); Sorrell p. 69 C'est bien la pire peineDe ne savoir pourquoiSans amour et sans haineMon cœur a tant de peine! By far the worst painIs not to understandWhy without love or hateMy heart's full of pain. "Il pleur dans mon cœur" line 13, from Romances sans paroles (1874); Sorrell p. 71 Qu'as-tu fait, ô toi que voilàPleurant sans cesse,Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voilàDe ta jeunesse? What have you done, you standing thereIn floods of tears?Tell me what you have doneWith your young life? "Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit", line 13, from Sagesse (1880); Sorrell p. 111 "Art poétique", from Jadis et naguère (1884) De la musique avant toute chose,Et pour cela préfère l'ImpairPlus vague et plus soluble dans l'airSans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.Il faut aussi que tu n'ailles pointChoisir tes mots sans quelque méprise:Rien de plus cher que la chanson griseOù l'Indécis au Précis se joint. Let's hear the music first and foremost,And that means no more one-two-one-twos…Something more vague instead, something lighterDissolving in air, weightless as air.When you choose your words, no need to searchIn strict dictionaries for pinpointDefinitions. Better the subtleAnd heady Songs of Imprecision. Line 1; Sorrell p. 123 Pas la Couleur, rien que la nuance! Colour's forbidden, only Nuance! Line 14; Sorrell p. 125 Prends l'éloquence et tords-lui son cou!Tu feras bien, en train d'énergie,Du rendre un peu la Rime assagie.Si l'on n’y veille, elle ira jusqu’où? Ô qui dira les torts de la Rime!Quel enfant sourd ou quel nègre fouNous a forgé ce bijou d'un souQui sonne creux et faux sous la lime? Grip eloquence by the throat and squeezeIt to death. And while you're about itYou might corral that runaway, Rhyme,Or you'll get Rhyme Without End, Amen. Who will denounce that criminal, Rhyme?Tone-deaf children or crazed foreignersNo doubt fashioned its paste jewellery,Tinplate on top, hollow underneath. Line 21; Sorrell p. 125 Que ton vers soit la bonne aventure Éparse au vent crispé du matinQui va fleurant la menthe et le thym…Et tout le reste est littérature. You must let your poems ride their luckOn the back of the sharp morning airTouched with the fragrance of mint and thyme…And everything else is LIT-RIT-CHER. Line 33, Sorrell p. 125 Quotes about Verlaine Anna Margolin was greatly influenced by Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Rimbaud; among the Germans, by Else Lasker-Schüler and Rainer Maria Rilke; and among the Yiddish poets, by Itsik Manger and Avrom Sutzkever. Drunk from the Bitter Truth: The Poems of Anna Margolin by Shirley Kumove (2005) That time, that excitement, I will always remember,/like a song without words, like a poem by Verlaine. Anna Margolin "The Song of a Girl" poem in Drunk from the Bitter Truth, translated from Yiddish Two of the most perfect lives I have come across in my own experience are the lives of Verlaine and of Prince Kropotkin: both of them men who have passed years in prison: the first, the one Christian poet since Dante; the other, a man with a soul of that beautiful white Christ which seems coming out of Russia. Oscar Wilde, in De Profundis (1897) Verlaine, the maudit poet, but with a strong religious torment that ended up prevailing, speaking of the love for Mary: «all other loves are orders». With similar words, he wanted to underline that "free" character of Marian devotion that the Church has always safeguarded. Over 20 centuries, only a few dogmas have been proclaimed about her di lei: which among other things, we know, are at the service and shelter of her di lei Son di lei, well before her di lei. Only to these defined truths does the Catholic owe homage. Everything else, regarding Mary, is left to the free sensitivity and initiative of the believer. Vittorio Messori, Hypothesis about Maria, p. 274. External links Paul Verlaine Category:Poets from France Category:Playwrights from France Category:Educators from France Category:LGBT people Category:Catholics from France Category:1844 births Category:1896 deaths