Synopses & Reviews
It is the reading world's good fortune that Stéphane Mallarmé's letters survived, allowing later generations an intimate look at the inner life of one of Europe's most important poets. Mallarmé (1842-98), often called the father of the Symbolists, has had an immense influence on the development of modern European poetry. It was his ambition to create a poetry pure of quotidian reality—autonomous, concentrated, linguistically inventive. His correspondence documents the evolution of this aim, the crafting of a poetics out of a life inescapably "real" in its pains and charms.
Synopsis
It is the reading world's good fortune that Stephane Mallarme's letters survived, allowing later generations an intimate look at the inner life of one of Europe's most important poets. The first volume of Mallarme's letters to appear in English, this selection follows the poet from childhood to his premature death. The letters from this period also tell movingly of the young poet's love affair with the woman he eventually married.
Table of Contents
Translator's Note
Chronology
Introduction
Letters
1. Childhood and Youth
2. Teaching in the Provinces
3. Hérodiade and the Faun
4. The Descent into the Void
5. The Return to the Center
6. Love and Friendship
7. Verse and Prose
8. Prince of Poets
Index