POETRY THURSDAY!!!!! I have a

POETRY THURSDAY!!!!!

I have a thing for French Symbolist art, poetry and music. I can't help it. Sometimes I even see Diebenkorn as a cryptosymbolist (Ocean Park series, maybe Bay Area Figurative Movement works, certainly nothing earlier). Sometimes I project this on Hopper. Musically, I have been known to stretch it and argue for a Symbolist interpretation of Lou Harrison, but unfortunately most of my music geek friends don't give a fig about Symbolism. Too bad. Their loss, etc.

So, here is the poem for the week. I will put it in French and English. It is by Stephane Mallarme (for some reason I cannot get the accent marks to work in the Blogosphere on this computer, sorry). In light of this being Lent, I figured that one with overt religious imagery would be good. The translation I am using is Hubert Creekmore's.

Sainte

Ala fenetre recelant
Le santal vieux qui se dedore
De sa viole etincelant
Jadis avec flute ou mandore,

Est la Sainte pale etalant
Le livre vieux qui se deplie
Du Magnificat ruisselant
Jadis selon vepre et complie:

A ce vitrage d'ostensoir
Que frole une harpe par l'Ange
Formee avec son vol du soir
Pour la delicate phalange

Du doigt que, sans le vieux santal
Ni le vieux livre, elle balance
Sur le plumage instrumental,
Musicienne du silence.

WOW! There is a whole lot to talk about in this poem. I hope that you non-French speakers will at least go back to the French after reading the translation, and will look at the structure, since French Symbolist poetry is heavily dependent on structural matters.

Saint

At the window ledge concealing
The ancient sandalwod gold-flaking
Of her viol dimly twinkling
Long ago with flute or manore,

Stands the pallid Saint displaying
The ancient missal page unfolding
At the Magnificat outpouring
Long ago for vesper and compline:

At that monstrance glazing lightly
Brushed now by a harp the Angel
Fashioned in his evening flight
Just for the delicate finger

Tip which, lacking the ancient missal
Or ancient sandalwood, she poises
On the instrumental plumage,
Musician of silence.

I have some quarrels with the translation, but for the most part it does the trick. The book it is from is Stephane Mallarme, Selected Poetry and Prose, New Directions Books, New York, 1982.

Posted by erik at March 27, 2003 8:32 PM | TrackBack