The Poet Assassinated [Paperback]

Guillaume Apollinaire (Author), Ron Padgett (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 1994

Apollinaire was modernism's first champion, and after his early death in 1918, he became its first saint. Lying in a hospital bed in 1915, recovering from combat wounds suffered in World War I, Apollinaire assembled the fragments of a tragicomic, mock-epic, and occasionally obscene autobiography-a-clef: The Poet Assassinated. This novella recounts the life and death of Croniamantal, whose birth is "saluted" by the Eiffel Tower's "beautiful erection," who rises through the Parisian literary world to proclaim himself "the greatest of living poets," and who is then torn to pieces by a mob. A statue built "out of nothing, like poetry and glory," is constructed in his honor. This translation is by Matthew Josephson, an American editor who arrived in Paris just after the war and entered the circle of avant-garde artists and poets that had been galvanized by Apollinaire's life and death. Josephson was among the first to introduce these dadaists and surrealists to the U.S. via his archetypal small magazine, Broom, and among his most ambitious projects was this translation, published by Broom as a limited edition book in 1923 and never since reprinted.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Exact Change (November 2, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878972162
• ISBN-13: 978-1878972163
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,837,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Los cuentos fantásticos de Apollinaire, April 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Poet Assassinated, The (Paperback)

Además de la novela corta que da título al libro, la edición se acompaña de un conjunto de relatos en los que el autor demuestra su capacidad imaginativa y su dominio del lenguaje. La prosa de Guillaume Apollinaire nunca ha sido tan reconocida como sus versos, pero debemos advertir que los textos que integran "El Poeta Asesinado" han servido de hipotexto para obras maestras posteriores de la talla de Kafka.