Selected Poems [Paperback]

For the original material, Verlaine is an amazing poet. He represents possibly the first and greatest lyrical poet to be initiated into modernity. His lyricism is not baroque, whimsical, or decadent - it is haunted and beautifull. It is like the music of Chopin (as it could be said that Rimbaud's is closer to that of Liszt). He represents a unique tract among the many poetic styles gestating in a Paris newly thrust into what we call modernity. There was the cynical and disolute Baudelaire, the ribald and frenzied Rimbaud, and then the melancholy and lyrical Verlaine. These three writers could easily be seen as a trifecta of greatness: they together represent the principal moods that have dominated literature to follow in their tracks.

The editions of a poets works, however, should certainly be considered independent of the poems themselves. Translation and selection of poems from such a broad body of work is both highly prejudicial, and (perhaps as a result) also creates a unique beauty in each seperate edition.

This edition, though, is a stand out among others available. First, because it probably is the largest English collection of Verlaines work (170 poems or so) and second because it's assembly, tranlations, and annotation reveal a very profound thoughtfullness on the part of the translator and editor, Martin Sorrell.

Most selections of Verlaines work are contrite and myopic, pick only certain early poems which have been translated and anthologized ad nauseum with no greater depth than that of a poem-a-day desk calendar or the litterary equivalent of easy listening music. In contrast, Sorrell's presentation is symphonic. The poems he has selected are true to the life of the poet - complete with ragged edges and blissfull moments.

How could one appreciate Verlaine's true genius if he is only shown in an artificial, sacrine, sanatized way? Sorrell boldly includes a large amount of poems from Verlaine's later work, largely disparaged by other critics, and provides very thoughtfull annotations about the inspirations, impacts, and ultimate relevance of each poem.

In this way Sorrell has created a very thoughtfull meditation on the life and work of Verlaine, and shares it with his audience so even a layman can appreciate it.

There is also a parallel French Text, which I find indespensible. Although not all of the translations are done the same way I would, diversity is what makes literature beautifull, and I am very interested to see the relationship between Sorrell's scholarship of Verlaine's life and the way in which he translates Verlaine's verses. This is a valuable tool not found if you were to simply read a French edition of Verlaine's poems or preuse an anthology.

In the end, this book is a excellent illustration of why translations and collections can be usefull even to people who have already read Verlaine in French.

After graduation, Verlaine worked as a clerk in an insurance agency and later in the Paris City Hall. But at night, he devoted himself to the poetry he had come to love and to the Bohemian lifestyle of the Paris cafés where he met other talented young poets, such as Mallarmé and Anatole France. His romance with poetry began at the same time as his romance with liquor, in particular, Absinthe, a hallucinogenic brand of alcohol popular with artists of that time. He fell in love with a cousin, who, although she spurned him in love, did help him to publish his first collection of poems, which he dedicated to her. Unfortunately, the volume met with little success. Verlaine then fell in love with and married the sixteen year old Mathilde Maute and thus began years of quarrels, drunkenness and abuse.

After Paris was seized and made a commune, Verlaine became a press office for the revolutionaries, but he lived in constant fear of reprisal. Mathilde gave birth to a son and the arrival in Paris of the young Rimbaud gave birth to a homosexual fascination that led Verlaine to abandon his young wife and son to wander northern France and Belgium with his talented and equally tempestuous lover. Rimbaud and Verlaine ended up in London where they found more than enough Bohemian amusements to fill their days and a group of admirers who helped Verlaine publish the daring collection of poems he composed during his travels. Unfortunately, things took a serious turn for the worse. Verlaine shot and wounded Rimbaud, an event that not only ended his relationship with Rimbaud but set Verlaine on the road to a conversion. Verlaine spent two years in prison for shooting Rimbaud, during which time he inexplicably converted to Catholicism and began composing poems about his change of heart.

Verlaine's wife had (understandably) divorced him, so, when he left prison, he first tried to live, unsuccessfully, among Trappist monks. Verlaine next traveled to Germany in order to reconcile with Rimbaud, but Rimbaud violently rejected him. Next came a period as a high school teacher where Verlaine was admired for his piety and dignity by everyone from Tennyson to the local hymn writers. The publication of his Catholic prison poems (published at his own expense) eventually brought him literary recognition even though the volume initially sold only eight copies. His treatise on the art of poetry, which he composed in prison was adopted by the Symbolist movement who used it to blaze new trails in poetic form. (Verlaine, however, distanced himself from the Symbolist movement.)

With the death of his favorite pupil (with whom he had tried his hand at farming) and the death of his beloved mother, Verlaine found himself alone in the world. He returned to a life of drink and debauchery, gaining a notorious reputation that threatened his growing stature in the literary community. Deteriorating health forced Verlaine into extended hospital stays, where, incredibly, he found the peace he had so long sought. When released, however, he immediately went back to his old ways, drinking up whatever money he had made and dividing his time between two aging prostitutes. His literary reputation allowed him to earn drinking money from his writing, but his later works are devoid of the magic of his earlier period, save for a collection of homosexual love poems he published anonymously. To his enormous credit, he did, however, write a number of works that exposed the public to many of the writers he knew and admired, including Rimbaud and Mallarmé. His own growing network of admirers provided him with money and the French government provided him with a pension, thus allowing him to accept many public speaking engagements throughout England. He died of pulmonary congestion in the home of one of his favorite prostitutes and his funeral in Paris was attended by thousands.

One of Varlaine's most enduring themes in that of salvation in love. He, himself, looked for salvation in his early loves, hoping that each beloved could save him from himself and his errant ways. Later he tried to find this salvation in the love of God. He often wrote about unrequited love and forbidden love, the subject of his last accomplished poems. His handling of these themes is not particularly profound but the beauty of the imagery and of the French language give the poems a resonance and force not found elsewhere.

Verlaine was one of the first poets to focus on the pure musicality and rhythm of his native French without concern for classical form. Though his innovations in rhythm provided the foundation for free verse, Verlaine, himself, always thought rhyme was a necessity for French poetry. His influence is so pervasive that a modern reader may not notice the innovations he developed because his rhythms, imagery and way of depicting his themes are now so common in modern poetic language. Verlaine's true talent did not lie in the depth of his subject matter but in the sound images of his native French. While a good translation is invaluable, Verlaine is one poet, above all others, who is absolutely essential to read in French.