Sunday, February 13, 2011

Poetry

  
To be perfectly honest, I’m not really in the mood for writing about love as I’m no longer sure I know what it means. And anyway, I’ve already written about it here

So I’ve turned my thoughts to poetry. After all, most poets have written about love so it’s a fitting subject for le Saint Valentin. The problem is, it’s also a vast subject, so I’ve had to limit myself to a handful of famous French poets, most of whom were tortured, angst-ridden, debauched souls with a penchant for drugs, alcohol and infidelity. So they obviously knew what they were talking about…

I wanted to begin with a brief description of poetic form. However, after several hours reading articles about it in books and on the Internet, I am thoroughly confused. I understand that most French poetry is syllabic and I know what an Alexandrine is (a twelve-syllable line probably named after the twelfth century Alexandrine romances in which Alexander the Great was the hero). But my eyes begin to glaze over when I read of mute ‘e’s being elided and hypermetrical when followed by vowels, and the significance of caesura, hiatus and hémistiches…

So let’s stick to the poets. And I apologize in advance that half of my post seems to be an html link. I have no idea why but I am not going to stay up all night trying to put it right. Just don't click - it will get you nowhere...


 












































































































4 comments:

Lesley said...

I enjoyed that. Thanks for making the effort.
Two little asides. I always thought that verse, poetry and song, in French got away with it too easily as anything with an 'e' on the end was acceptable. Even at my (old) age I still snigger at 'Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder'.

Sarah said...

I recently found out about Rimbaud as my youngest had to rustle up a short bio on him, so we raided Wikipedia.

There was a piece in the Times recently about the influence of drugs and alcohol in art in the age of opium and really, people complain about modern junkies but they are in amazing historical and artistic company!

Gigi said...

Yes, Lesley...I still snigger at that one too :-)

I missed that piece in The Times, Sarah - I'll have to look it up - sounds fascinating!

sablonneuse said...

Popped in a few days late for St Valentine but enjoyed the poetry - especially yours as it was easier to understand ;) I should be able to enjoy French poetry by now but it does lose it's feeling when you struggle with the translation.
Cheer up, I don't have much love in my life either(just a husband and an ex-husband!). If you're on your own then there's room for someone else. Keep hoping . . .xxx