Beset by financial worries and insomnia, Symbolist poet Mallarme (1842-1898), while teaching in the French provinces, came to define his artistic quest as a constantly changing continuum between being and non-being. Returning to his birthplace, Paris, in 1871, he sought to make art a spiritual vehicle and as such a substitute for religion. This notably perceptive biography replaces the popular image of the obscure aesthete with a portrait of a committed artist torn between the conflicting claims of his poetry and his family. A professor of French studies in Scotland, Millan views Mallarme's life as a series of gambles, from his decision to marry his uneducated German mistress, Marie Gerhard, to his rejection of the Catholic faith and his experimental prose and verse. Millan's literal translations of Mallarme's poems, interspersed throughout the narrative, have surprising power. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
As a leading figure of the Symbolist movement in France during the second half of the 19th century, Mallarme believed in the mysteriousness of poetry and the sanctity of its words. In his early literary essays he stated that the power of poetry is in the suggestions of its images and that the ultimate goal of writing poetry is the creation of poetic language. His poetic vintage indeed was often dubbed obscure, and he was himself regarded as the symbol of eccentricity by many of his contemporaries. After a difficult debut, he had a boost thanks to his introduction to the public by Paul Verlaine in Poetes maudits and especially by Joris Karl Huysman in A rebours. Mallarme's main work, L'Apres-midi d'un faune, was considered the "most skillful poem" in French by Paul Valery. Millan (French, Univ. of Strathclyde), editor of the definitive critical edition of Mallarme's work, set out to explain many aspects of Mallarme's life and to "correct distortions." Both goals are met successfully, to varying degrees. Highly recommended for literary collections.
Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N.Y.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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