Book picks similar to
Baudelaire in English by Charles Baudelaire
poetry
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Novels in Three Lines
Félix Fénéon - 1906
This extraordinary trove, undiscovered until the 1940s and here translated for the first time into English, is the work of the mysterious Félix Fénéon. Dandy, anarchist, and critic of genius, the discoverer of Georges Seurat and the first French publisher of James Joyce, Fénéon carefully maintained his own anonymity, toiling for years as an obscure clerk in the French War Department. Novels in Three Lines is his secret chef-d’oeuvre, a work of strange and singular art that brings back the long-ago year of 1906 with the haunting immediacy of a photograph while looking forward to such disparate works as Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project and the Death and Disaster series of Andy Warhol.
The Night is Darkening Round Me
Emily Brontë - 1846
ever-present, phantom thing; My slave, my comrade, and my king' Some of Emily Brontë's most extraordinary poems Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Emily Brontë (1818-1848). Brontë's Wuthering Heights and The Complete Poems are available in Penguin Classics
The Complete Essays
Michel de Montaigne
This Penguin Classics edition of The Complete Essays is translated from the French and edited with an introduction and notes by M.A. Screech.In 1572 Montaigne retired to his estates in order to devote himself to leisure, reading and reflection. There he wrote his constantly expanding 'assays', inspired by the ideas he found in books contained in his library and from his own experience. He discusses subjects as diverse as war-horses and cannibals, poetry and politics, sex and religion, love and friendship, ecstasy and experience. But, above all, Montaigne studied himself as a way of drawing out his own inner nature and that of men and women in general. The Essays are among the most idiosyncratic and personal works in all literature and provide an engaging insight into a wise Renaissance mind, continuing to give pleasure and enlightenment to modern readers.With its extensive introduction and notes, M.A. Screech's edition of Montaigne is widely regarded as the most distinguished of recent times.Michel de Montaigne (1533-1586) studied law and spent a number of years working as a counsellor before devoting his life to reading, writing and reflection.If you enjoyed The Complete Essays, you might like Francois Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel, also available in Penguin Classics.'Screech's fine version ... must surely serve as the definitive English Montaigne'A.C. Grayling, Financial Times'A superb edition'Nicholas Wollaston, Observer
The Lais of Marie de France
Marie de France
Little is known of her but she was probably the Abbess of the abbey at Shaftesbury in the late 12th century, illegitimate daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet and hence the half-sister of Henry II of England. It was to a king, and probably Henry II, that she dedicated these poems of adventure and love which were retellings of stories which she had heard from Breton minstrels. She is regarded as the most talented French poet of the medieval period.
Collected Poems and Other Verse
Stéphane Mallarmé - 1899
His writings, with their richly sensuous texture and air of slyly intangible mystery, perplexed or outraged many early readers; yet no writer has more profoundly influenced the course of modern poetry - in English as well as in French. This is the fullest collection of Mallarme's poetry ever published in the English language, and the only edition in any language that presents his Poesies in the last arrangement known to have been approved by the author. Prose poems, uncollected verse, and the unique, unclassifiable Un Coup de des... (A Dice Throw...) are also present, including over 20 items that have never previously been translated. Original spelling, punctuation, and lineation have been preserved throughout. The lucid, wide-ranging introduction provides a clear survey of Mallarme's work and deals fully with the difficulties that may face readers approaching it for the first time. Collected Poems offers both Mallarme lovers and first-time readers a full understanding of this astonishing poet's work."
Do You Hear Them?
Nathalie Sarraute - 1972
As they discuss the merits of the piece and art in general, the father hears his children upstairs giggling. This childish mirth is barbaric and devastating to the father, for in their laughter he hears them mocking his "old-fashioned" viewpoint and the energy he wastes by collecting lifeless objects. In his mind, they have no respect for what has been of greatest importance in his life.
Liszt's Kiss
Susanne Dunlap - 2007
A fiery and gorgeous Hungarian, he made women swoon at soirees and left a trail of broken hearts behind him. Anne, a countess and talented young pianist whose mother has just died of cholera, hears Franz Liszt in concert and is swept up in his allure. The enigmatic Marie d'Agoult, a friend of Anne's late mother, takes her under her wing and introduces her to the artistic world -- despite the objections of Anne's sullen and sorrowful father. Anne soon finds herself in the midst of dangerous intrigues, discovering a family secret so shocking that her father will go to any lengths to protect it. With the ominous presence of Paris's most deadly epidemic looming over every turbulent event, Liszt's Kiss is a rich evocation of a remarkable period as seen through the eyes of a sensitive young artist.
Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
Georges Perec - 1974
The pieces in this volume show him to be at times playful, more serious at other, but writing always with the lightest of touches. He had the keenest of eyes for the 'infra-ordinary', the things we do every day - eating, sleeping, working - and the places we do them in without giving them a moment's thought. But behind the lightness and humour, there is also the sadness of a French Jewish boy who lost his parents in the Second World War and found comfort in the material world around him, and above all in writing.This volume contains a selection of Georges Perec's non-fiction works, along with a charming short story, 'The Winter Journey'. It also includes notes and an introduction describing Perec's life and career.
The Old Regime and the French Revolution
Alexis de Tocqueville - 1856
It is one of the major early historical works on the French Revolution.
The Difficulty of Being
Jean Cocteau - 1947
By the time he published The Difficulty of Being in 1947, Jean Cocteau had produced some of the most respected films and literature of the twentieth century, and had worked with the foremost artists of his time, including Proust, Gide, Picasso, and Stravinsky. This memoir tells the inside account of those achievements and of his glittering social circle. Cocteau writes about his childhood, about his development as an artist, and the peculiarity of the artist’s life, about his dreams, friendships, pain, and laughter. He probes his motivations and explains his philosophies, giving intimate details in soaring prose. And sprinkled throughout are anecdotes about the elite and historic people he associated with. Beyond illuminating a truly remarkable life, The Difficulty of Being is an inspiring homage to the belief that art matters.
Pensées
Blaise Pascal - 1670
The Penseés is a collection of philosohical fragments, notes and essays in which Pascal explores the contradictions of human nature in pscyhological, social, metaphysical and - above all - theological terms. Mankind emerges from Pascal's analysis as a wretched and desolate creature within an impersonal universe, but who can be transformed through faith in God's grace.
From Sleep Unbound
Andrée Chedid - 1952
Eventually sundered from every human attachment, Samya lapses into despair and despondence, and finally an emotionally caused paralysis. But when she shakes off the torpor of sleep, the sleep of avoidance, she awakens to action with the explosive energy of one who has been reborn.