Josephine Miles

#2

2005

Stephane Mallarme (1842-1898) is one of the giants of nineteenth-century French poetry. Leader of the Symbolist movement, he exerted a powerful influence on modern literature and thought, which can be traced in the works of Paul Valery, W. B. Yeats, Ferdinand de Saussure, and Jacques Derrida. From his early twenties until the time of his death, this great writer produced poems of astonishing originality and beauty, many of which have become classics. In the Collected Poems, Henry Weinfield brings the oeuvre of this European master to life for an English-speaking audience, essentially for the first time. All of the poems - in verse and prose - that the author chose to retain are here, superbly rendered by Weinfield in a translation that comes remarkably close to Mallarme's own voice. Weinfield conveys not simply the meaning but the spirit and music of the French originals.^ Deeply affected by the religious crisis that shook the world of nineteenth-century intellectuals, Mallarme saw his task as "the Orphic explanation of the earth." His response was to develop a symbolic vocabulary with which to explore the deepest philosophical questions in highly condensed forms. Whether writing poetry in verse (the Poesies) or prose (the Poemes en Prose), or inventing an altogether new genre - as he did in the amazing "Un Coup de Des," his final work - Mallarme was a poet not only of supreme artistry but of great difficulty. To illuminate Mallarme's poetry for the twentieth-century reader, Weinfield provides an extensive commentary, which is an important work of criticism in its own right. Here the translator defines the major symbols in the poems, elucidates many of the difficulties and complexities of the poetry, and sets each poem in the larger context of the work as a whole.^ Weinfield also includes an introduction and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Publication of the Collected Poems is a major literary event in the English-speaking world. Here at last are the poetic works of an important figure in modern literature, masterfully translated and presented.

#3

1881

A new, wide-ranging selection of Ralph Waldo Emerson's most influential writings, this edition captures the essence of American Transcendentalism and illustrates the breadth of one of America's greatest philosophers and poets.The writings featured here show Emerson as a protester against social conformity, a lover of nature, an activist for the rights of women and slaves, and a poet of great sensitivity. As explored in this volume, Emersonian thought is a unique blend of belief in individual freedom and in humility before the power of nature. "I become a transparent eyeball," Emerson wrote in Nature, "I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God." Written over a century ago, this passage is a striking example of the passion and originality of Emerson's ideas, which continue to serve as a spiritual center and an ideological base for modern thought.From the Paperback edition.