Collected Poems in English and French

by Samuel Beckett

Book Overview

One of the most important playwrights and novelists of the twentieth century, Samuel Beckett was also an accomplished poet and translator. Collected Poems in English and French is a complete collection of all the poetry by the Nobel Prize-winning writer, including his poetry written originally in English and French, as well as his translations of major French poets such as Paul Eluard, Arthur Rimbaud, and Guillaume Appollinaire.

The English...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802130968
• ISBN13: 9780802130969
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A more concise form of expression

Samuel Beckett is known most widely for his plays ("Waiting for Godot") and his prose ("Molloy") than his poetry, but this collection displays to the reader that Beckett had a mastery over every literary form, including the world of verse. Beckett's poetry bears many of the same styles and composition methods as other 20th century writers such as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, but where these others focused on themes of isolation and disenchantment, Beckett employs striking stream-of-consciousness imagery to relate particular moments in time, snapshots of everyday life filtered through the perception of a mind raging with repressed anger and sexuality (see "Whoroscope" for a prime example). Furthermore, his poetry, similar to his drama and fiction, is rife with religious symbolism and allusions, much like his contemporary James Joyce. Those looking for bombastic, rhythmic, romantic poetry with witty rhymes and colorful adjectives probably won't find Beckett amusing, but the emotional energy and pure expression of this Irish genius' verse should not overlooked. Keep in mind, also, that many of the poems are in French, though the author translates a few for comparison.

Beckett's poetry will blow you away

Samuel Beckett is very celebrated as a playwright and to a lesser extent, as a novelist. However he is phenomenally underrated as a poet. This relatively short volume shows much of the poet's work in English and in French often with parallel translations, as well as Beckett's translations of poems by famous French poets. For anyone passionate about Beckett's work, this collection of poems will be an absolute gem. Perhaps it is because of the brevity and concision of verse, but it is within poetry that Beckett's bleakness takes on its greatest power. Here he conveys in an 8 line poem, what he would spend an entire play expressing elsewhere. As well as the awesome nature of his own work, Beckett gives English translations of other poets who bear a striking resemblance to his style. Poems such as 'Scene' and 'Second Nature' have a power that is rendered even more immense through Beckett's translation. To all Beckettian readers I say that you do not know the true beauty of his work until you have familiarised yourself with his phenomenal poetry.

Reservations

Even though Beckett is my favorite writer, I do not think that poetry was his best medium, and I think that this volume shows it all too well. Also, on a more technical note, this book does not include translations of all the French works into English (which bothers me) or, for all that matter, all the English works into French. That said, there are great moments here that poetry fans who are not necessarily also Beckett fans may enjoy. Beckett's first published work, an odd dissertation on Descartes called "Whoroscope," has a wonderfully Bohemian presence. I was most impressed, however, with the translations, which truly roar and pitch! The best are those of Apollinaire's "Zone," Rimbaud's "Drunken Boat" (which Rimbaud himself would have loved, I think), and several maxims by the little-known French Revolutionary writer Sebastien Chamfort. When one reads of Rimbaud "foul(ing) unutterable Floridas," one is inclined to think, "What about the utterable Floridas?" This is one of the reasons poetry is so much fun.

More for enthusiasts of French poetry than of modern theater

I beg to differ with the previous reviewer. The greatness of this collection has to do with its connection to French poetry, and not to any connection to Beckett's stage work. The aphorisms are of minor interest, for example, and appeal to those seeking the expository. Rather, the volume's center of gravity is the translations of Eluard, which comprise many pages. These poems and their translations are breathtakingly beautiful, combining the intuitive and delicate play of sound and language of a Hart Crane (or a Dylan Thomas) with the experimentation (an occasionaly touch of Dada) and yet directness of a Rene Char. The few poems of Beckett himself are clearly following this lead -- if not directly emulating-- and are themselves beautiful and experimental more than they are meaningful. Witness the singsonginess of "Roundelay," or, for those who want something more comprehensible, the mixture of experiment and directness in "Mort de A.D." here a selection from the author's own translation from the French:"je suis ce cours de sable qui glisse entre le galet et la dune...my way is in the sand flowing between the shingle and the dune the summer rain rains on my life on me my life harrying fleeing to its beginning to its endmy peace is there in the receding mist when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds and live the space of a door that opens and shutswhat would I do without this world faceless incurious where to be lasts but an instant where every instant spills in the void the ignorance of having been without this wave where in the end body and shadow together are engulfed what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die the pantings the frenzies towards succour towards love without this sky that soars above its ballast dustwhat would I do what I did yesterday and the day before peering out of my deadlight looking for another wandering like me eddying far from all the living in a convulsive space amoing the voices voiceless that throng my hiddennessI would like my love to die and the rain to be raining on the graveyard and on me walking the streets mourning her who thought she loved me"I have never found a volume of poetry more accessible to people, other than poems of Rilke and of Rumi. Beckett manages to combine a musicality of language with the communication of complex and gentle heart-messages. Other poets could take a lesson from Beckett: less is more. Not everything you commit to paper must find its way to the marketplace; having one great book of poetry makes you no less a formidable poet than one with a dozen. Quite the contrary.

Wonderful transaltions and modernist experiments

These poems are not as intersting or important as his dramatic and prose works, but this volume has a few very good poems("Echo's Bones", "sanies I", "Saint Lo", "Whoroscope") and interesting trasnaltions of Apolloinaire & Rimbaud. But it is his adaptaions of the maxims of Sebastien Chamfort(called "Long after Chamfort") that give that characteristic mix of humor, despair, intimacy, isolation, confession and soul-searing. To wit, a few choice maxims:"Better on your arse than on your feet, Flat on your back than either, dead than the lot.Ask of all-healing, all-consoling thought Salve and solace for the woe it wrought.sleep till death healeth come ease this life disease"