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  1. #91
    Yes I've enjoyed the first poem and the thoughts on it very much; a very delicate little piece I think. I love the impression of the girl's wandering eye, the Doctor bending down lost in his collections and the frantic waving of the puppets! As Virgil hints, in his way, it is something of a sketch of a sketch, but for me no less enjoyable for the fleeting image it brings (and certainly agree with the point made about Wilde's aesthetics of course).

    I certainly go along with the interesting points already made and don't really have anything to add other than it got me thinking of the absence in the poem, the things left unsaid - the people who are obviously present at the puppet show but are not there. The children perhaps for one (I'm not sure of the nature of this particular puppet show). One wonders if there is any significance at all about this? Maybe not. Perhaps Verlaine is just very succinct in the minute detail he pulls out - which certainly gives its own impression of a story regardless - but I always find it interesting to think about what is not said sometimes as well as what is. There's certainly more people present than three!


    I've not properly read the other poem yet, I'll make it my bedtime piece if I've time...

  2. #92
    In regards to the first poem “Fantoches” I think there is also a case to be made about the fleeting passage of time in relation to the puppets. For me there is something completely mocking about them. Maybe the idea of puppets is a play on the idea of human life, in a similar fashion to Shakespeare’s “life’s a stage” that we are merely players playing out a role in life, as are the puppets?

    Their “making evil plans together” and the waving of their arms (“gesticulent” in French, presumably “gesticulating” in English would be more of a direct translation?) seems to me to be similar to the “strutting and fretting upon the stage.” Always such a powerful mocking of life that for me, the “struts and frets” completely reduces the self-importance of the individual as we get wrapped up in our little worlds. Anyway, I see the possibility of a similar thing here which fits well with the readings already given about life’s fleeting nature and the shortness of it, in the greater scheme of things.

    Could there not also be something about the shadow of them in regards to Plato’s cave? Where, there too of course, we are made to think about the bigger picture of the world in relation to our own?

  3. #93
    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    In regards to the first poem “Fantoches” I think there is also a case to be made about the fleeting passage of time in relation to the puppets. For me there is something completely mocking about them. Maybe the idea of puppets is a play on the idea of human life, in a similar fashion to Shakespeare’s “life’s a stage” that we are merely players playing out a role in life, as are the puppets?

    I like the interpretation... and suspect you would be right in suggesting that Verlaine's human characters are in many ways puppets themselves.


    I'm hoping that as the weekend arrives we get some more participation... perhaps someone else posting a preferred poem... but if not... I'll throw something up there Saturday. I can't imagine going into the studio long when it's set to be approaching 100-degrees F.

    Time to break out the beer!
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    The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
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  4. #94
    Dance Magic Dance OrphanPip's Avatar
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    I don't have the collection that was chosen by the group for discussion.

    I have read all of the fetes galantes poems. I actually think "Fantoches" is one of the better poems in the collection, but anyway. The weakest ones for me are those that center around the little conversations.

    "Clair de Lune" is a poem I first read back in secondary school, and for the longest time it has been irrevocably linked, in my mind, with Debussy's music.

    Throughout the poem, Verlaine seems to introduce happy images before quickly snatching them away. The first line of the poem begins with a basic happy description of a fetes galantes and moves on to establish what is the prevailing mood of the collection, they're just a little bit sad despite the glamour. The sadness seems to move organically from the party goers through to their song, which merges with the moon, to finally make the moonlight itself sad. I think there's a big problem with the translations, because the moonlight is not described as having a "sad beauty," but is described as being "sad and beautiful." Verlaine's word choice seems important here. The moonlight, party, singing, and fountain would usually be associated with joy and beauty, but the mild sadness pervades everything.

    Quote Originally Posted by stlukesguild View Post
    I like the interpretation... and suspect you would be right in suggesting that Verlaine's human characters are in many ways puppets themselves.
    I think the title alone supports this, the puppets on stage don't seem to be the focus of the poem at all.
    Last edited by OrphanPip; 07-23-2010 at 01:25 AM.

  5. #95
    Time to break out the beer!
    I'll say, it's the end of the year... Cue Alice Cooper...

    Throughout the poem, Verlaine seems to introduce happy images before quickly snatching them away
    The moonlight, party, singing, and fountain would usually be associated with joy and beauty, but the mild sadness pervades everything.
    Yes, I've not got the poem with me so I can't say anything much, but I felt with this one that it reminded me of Philip Sidney, the "How sad steps..." one. I felt that the narrator figure was seeing the external world though his inner sadness; that he was protecting his inner thoughts and feelings on to this external world. I also felt that there was perhaps an element of enjoying the melancholy in the latter part of the poem which is something quite familiar, found in the likes of Keats for example.

    Anyway.

  6. #96
    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    The weakest ones for me are those that center around the little conversations.

    Yes... the poems that come across as fragments of overheard dialog are perhaps an intriguing idea... and feed into the overall whole cycle... but I agree that on their own they strike me as somewhat weak.

    I'll say, it's the end of the year... Cue Alice Cooper...

    Don't rush things... I still have 5 weeks 'til its back to teaching.


    I never got into Alice... even when I was 18 and school was out for summer. I did get a great shipment of classic blues music this week including Howling Wolf, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters... which will surely get me in the mood:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4t2A...eature=related
    Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
    The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
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  7. #97
    Still got 5 weeks, wow? I've only got less than 6 weeks this year, big rip off, but still...

    No I don't like Alice Cooper either, but I take the sentiment of school being "out" all the same...

  8. #98
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    May I suggest the next poem, should lead to some nice discussion, Birds In The Night



    You were not over-patient with me, dear;
    This want of patience one must rightly rate:
    You are so young! Youth ever was severe
    And variable and inconsiderate!

    You had not all the needful kindness, no;
    Nor should one be amazed, unhappily:
    You're very young, cold sister mine, and so
    'Tis natural you should unfeeling be!

    Behold me therefore ready to forgive;
    Not gay, of course! but doing what I can
    To bear up bravely,—deeply though I grieve
    To be, through you, the most unhappy man.


    II
    But you will own that I was in the right
    When in my downcast moods I used to say
    That your sweet eyes, my hope, once, and delight!
    Were come to look like eyes that will betray.

    It was an evil lie, you used to swear,
    And your glance, which was lying, dear, would flame,—
    Poor fire, near out, one stirs to make it flare!—
    And in your soft voice you would say, "Je t'aime!"

    Alas! that one should clutch at happiness
    In sense's, season's, everything's despite!—
    But 'twas an hour of gleeful bitterness
    When I became convinced that I was right!



    III
    And wherefore should I lay my heart-wounds bare?
    You love me not,—an end there, lady mine;
    And as I do not choose that one shall dare
    To pity,—I must suffer without sign.

    Yes, suffer! For I loved you well, did I,—
    But like a loyal soldier will I stand
    Till, hurt to death, he staggers off to die,
    Still filled with love for an ungrateful land.

    O you that were my Beauty and my Own,
    Although from you derive all my mischance,
    Are not you still my Home, then, you alone,
    As young and mad and beautiful as France?


    IV
    Now I do not intend—what were the gain?—
    To dwell with streaming eyes upon the past;
    But yet my love which you may think lies slain,
    Perhaps is only wide awake at last.

    My love, perhaps,—which now is memory!—
    Although beneath your blows it cringe and cry
    And bleed to will, and must, as I foresee,
    Still suffer long and much before it die,—

    Judges you justly when it seems aware
    Of some not all banal compunction,
    And of your memory in its despair
    Reproaching you, "Ah, fi! it was ill done!"


    V
    I see you still. I softly pushed the door—
    As one o'erwhelmed with weariness you lay;
    But O light body love should soon restore,
    You bounded up, tearful at once and gay.

    O what embraces, kisses sweet and wild!
    Myself, from brimming eyes I laughed to you
    Those moments, among all, O lovely child,
    Shall be my saddest, but my sweetest, too.

    I will remember your smile, your caress,
    Your eyes, so kind that day,—exquisite snare!—
    Yourself, in fine, whom else I might not bless,
    Only as they appeared, not as they were.


    VI
    I see you still! Dressed in a summer dress,
    Yellow and white, bestrewn with curtain-flowers;
    But you had lost the glistening laughingness
    Of our delirious former loving hours.

    The eldest daughter and the little wife
    Spoke plainly in your bearing's least detail,—
    Already 'twas, alas! our altered life
    That stared me from behind your dotted veil.

    Forgiven be! And with no little pride
    I treasure up,—and you, no doubt, see why,—
    Remembrance of the lightning to one side
    That used to flash from your indignant eye!


    VII
    Some moments, I'm the tempest-driven bark
    That runs dismasted mid the hissing spray,
    And seeing not Our Lady through the dark
    Makes ready to be drowned, and kneels to pray.

    Some moments, I'm the sinner at his end,
    That knows his doom if he unshriven go,
    And losing hope of any ghostly friend,
    Sees Hell already gape, and feels it glow.

    Oh, but! Some moments, I've the spirit stout
    Of early Christians in the lion's care,
    That smile to Jesus witnessing, without
    A nerve's revolt, the turning of a hair!

  9. #99
    Dance Magic Dance OrphanPip's Avatar
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    Some background information on this poem, Birds in the Night is the original title. Verlaine probably picked an English title because he was traveling in England at the time with Rimbaud. The poem is apparently about his wife. He's pretty self-righteous for a man who left her for a 17 year old boy...

  10. #100
    Vincit Qui Se Vincit Virgil's Avatar
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    I finally got the book and now I realize the context.

    Quote Originally Posted by Virgil View Post
    There has to be a greater context to this because in and by itself it doesn't seem like much of a poem. I've seen Lit Net poems better than this.
    Quote Originally Posted by Alexander III View Post
    From a personal context some poems are preferred over others, but we must remember who Verlaine was and how he used his art, the decadent movement, art for art's sake, there is no higher purpose than the creation of beauty. This theory on art is merely a school of thought of a movement, I personally utterly agree but many shall disagree.

    Nonetheless in this context Fantoches succeeds, in its shortness, it is immensely beautiful and lyrical. Some poetry seeks to nourish the mind, but the poetry of beauty nourishes the soul. Do you kinda get what im talking about ?
    That poem is part of the Pierre Lunare sequence. I should have realized but my mind is not what it was. Of course there is a context to it. I don't think one could really appreciate any single poem from the sequence and really needs to take in the entire sequence. You can read about the stock character here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot

    And if you get the chance, Arnold Schonberg put some of the poems (in German translation) to music and you can listen to one of them here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6LyYdSQQAQ
    and here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0ECH...eature=related
    and here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aERSz...eature=related
    LET THERE BE LIGHT

    "Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena

    My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/

  11. #101
    Artist and Bibliophile stlukesguild's Avatar
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    I never realized that Schoenberg's Pierre Lunaire was a setting of Verlaine. Sopmehow it completely escaped me. Then again... I can't imagine a worse match. Schoenberg strikes me in this work as a cross between German Expressionism and Surrealism... perhaps ideal for George Trakl, Bertolt Brecht, Wedekind... or Kafka... but not Verlaine. Schoenberg is a heavy handed duffer who lacks any of the delicacy and sophistication of Verlaine... but then again... I'm not a big fan of the whole Second Viennese School and their atonal followers... but even so... I find most of these followers (Berg, Webern, etc...) lack Schoenberg's ham-fistedness.

    But back to Verlaine...
    Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
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  12. #102
    Dance Magic Dance OrphanPip's Avatar
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    Pierrot Lunaire is actually a setting of poems by Giraud, a Belgian born contemporary of Schoenberg.

  13. #103
    Vincit Qui Se Vincit Virgil's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OrphanPip View Post
    Pierrot Lunaire is actually a setting of poems by Giraud, a Belgian born contemporary of Schoenberg.
    You are correct. I stand corrected. Sorry about that. But that Verlaine poem was incredibly similar to Lunaire. Then I don't understand the context of that poem.
    LET THERE BE LIGHT

    "Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena

    My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/

  14. #104
    Bibliophile JBI's Avatar
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    For Claire de Lune:

    The poem functions as an atmosphere of mutability and poetry - what the poem in effect does is paint a picture of the moment as an illusion - the landscape of night is used as the "landscape fantasy" where the setting is but a moment of cloaking, similar in understanding to I would think Keats' night in To a Nightingale. The poem picks up with the symbolic charge of a dinner party, with the music creating an illusion of joviality.

    "Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be
    Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise. "
    The question of music in the poem is one of symbolic infusion as well - music, and the dance marks an opiate, that cloaks everything - the night time is the music, it is the illusion that covers everyone, as they sway to its abandonment - the world of dreams.

    The second stanza marks a shift toward introducing a new theme, love - love is part of this realm of night, it is part of the illusion "song mingles with the pale moonlight" meaning it is enveloped in the atmosphere of the illusion.

    The last seems to echo the first, finishing the illusion - the world is the world of sleep, where nature itself, for a moment is caught - the world is swallowed by the illusion, part of the music and the party - it is dancing in its sleep if you will - consumed with a temporary sort of illusory quality. The last lines then slams home with the conclusion "Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau, /Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres. " The translation reversed the line order, which I think detracts a bit (he did so it would seem for the sake of metre) - the illusion recognizes its mutability - the solid, ever present fountains, which are not an aspect of the night and the natural realize that they are caught in the illusion - their song weeps of the coming morning.

    The beauty of the poem, I would argue, functions on what is outside of the poem - we are caught up in the sound and image of the lyric, to the point where we too, briefly, become part of the music - part of the moonlight. It is a brief escape into a world of sensuality that creates a secondary extradiagetic landscape - the world outside the poem is deliberately forced into an illusion, meaning, it's reality is the exact opposite - love is mutable, nature is changing, night is just a brief moment, and its passing sad. The beauty of the poem is Verlaine's ability to sustain the symbol of the moonlight throughout the entire lyric, as both landscape - it's shining over the world, music - it's intoxication, and finally as marker of time, with it's shifting and movement away marking a visual metronome or maestro for the weeping fountains. We as readers are lost within it as much as what is within it - the poem, in effect, has trapped the illusion of moonlight within its verses.


    Sorry for the late replies - it was a hectic week, and I didn't have the time to do any of these poems any justice. I will post on the next one later.

  15. #105
    Of Subatomic Importance Quark's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JBI View Post
    For Claire de Lune
    Yeah, I'll probably stay on this poem for a little while, too, as I haven't posted much on it yet.

    A note on the translation, though. The one posted above is a little loose. For example "et la vie opportune" (English: and the fortunate life) on line 6 isn't even included in the version above. A closer translation can be found here:

    http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_t...l?TextId=16243

    Quote Originally Posted by JBI View Post
    The beauty of the poem, I would argue, functions on what is outside of the poem - we are caught up in the sound and image of the lyric, to the point where we too, briefly, become part of the music - part of the moonlight. It is a brief escape into a world of sensuality that creates a secondary extradiagetic landscape - the world outside the poem is deliberately forced into an illusion, meaning, it's reality is the exact opposite - love is mutable, nature is changing, night is just a brief moment, and its passing sad.
    That's a pretty good overall picture of the poem's love/reality conflict. The only thing I might quibble with is the word "brief." You're right that night may give way to morning, but morning isn't exactly some new mode of life. Rather, it's the negation of life through death or the dissolution of relationships. The collection never really gives the idea that there's anything in life beyond loving and illusion. It's not as though a character busts into the poetry and asks the lover to wake up to reality, as might happen in an eighteenth-century work like Mozart's Don Giovanni. Instead, there's only illusion replacing illusion until death. There's no way of repenting of illusion and leading a rational life that accepts death and change.
    "Par instants je suis le Pauvre Navire
    [...] Par instants je meurs la mort du Pecheur
    [...] O mais! par instants"

    --"Birds in the Night" by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). Join the discussion here: http://www.online-literature.com/for...5&goto=newpost

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