The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire (Wesleyan Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Guillaume Apollinaire (Author), Donald Revell (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Wesleyan Poetry Series | Publication Date: March 23, 2004

Guillaume Apollinaire's final years exactly coincided with the clamorous advent of European Modernism and with the cataclysms of WWI. In The Self-Dismembered Man, poet Donald Revell offers new English translations of the most powerful poems Apollinaire wrote during those years: poems of nascent surrealism, of combat and of war-weariness. Here, too, is Apollinaire's last testament, "The Pretty Redhead," a farewell to the epoch that he--as poet, convict, art-critic, artilleryman and boulevardier--did so much to conjure and sustain until his death on Armistice Day in 1918. Readers of Apollinaire's more familiar early work, Alcools (Wesleyan, 1995), will find here a darker and yet more tender poet, a poet of the broken world who shares entirely the world's catastrophe even as he praises to the end its glamour and its strange innocence. This English translation, facing the original French, illuminates Apollinaire's crucial and continuing influence on the European and American avant-garde. The volume includes a short translator's preface.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Here is a work that is devoted, fresh, tender and full of care, both in its selection and in the translation. It succinctly sketches a bridge between Apollinaire, poet of the early 20th century and poetry at present." (Norma Cole, author of Cross-Cut Universe: Writing on Writing From France )

From the Publisher

6 x 9 1/4 trim. 2 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan; Trans. from the French edition (March 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819566918
• ISBN-13: 978-0819566911
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,928,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good collection., February 15, 2005

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This review is from: The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire (Wesleyan Poetry Series) (Paperback)

Guillaume Apollinaire, The Self-Dismembered Man (Wesleyan, 2004)

This selection of Apollinaire's war poems, translated by Donald Revell, is not the "first substantial translation" the jacket claims (both the Selected Poems and Michael Benedikt's must-have collection The Poetry of Surrealism contain extensive selections from the same time-period), but it certainly is a substantial work, and one that everyone who claims to be a fan of surrealism needs to read, and pronto. Revell's translations have an almost singular ability to keep Apollinaire's subtle wit intact, and his word choices often allow a number of different interpretations to come through. Not to say that some of Revell's word choices emphasize certain interpretations; there's no way to avoid this when translating poetry. Still, he seems to have made a conscious effort to be as ambiguous as Apollinaire wherever possible, which is a wonderful thing.

The only slipping point is the final poem, "La Jolie Rousse," but then I've had problems with every translation of "La Jolie Rousse" since Hamburger's a quarter of a century ago, so my thoughts aren't to be trusted on that one.

Very good stuff, well worth picking up. ****