Stéphane Mallarmé

Stéphane Mallarmé

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898) was the great French Symbolist poet. According to his theories, nothing lies beyond reality, but within this nothingness lies the essence of perfect forms and it is the task of the poet to reveal and crystallize these essences. Mallarmé’s poetry employs condensed figures and unorthodox syntax. Each poem is built around a central symbol, idea, or metaphor and consists of subordinate images that illustrate and help to develop the idea. As well as changing the course of modern French literature, his work influenced James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Wallace Stevens.

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A Tomb For Anatole

by Stéphane Mallarmé

Translated from the French by Paul Auster

The great French Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), who changed the course of modern French literature, suffered many tragedies, but the cruelest blow of all struck in 1879, when his beloved son Anatole died at the age of eight. His unbearable grief inspired him to attempt a major work. A Tomb for Anatole presents the 202 fragments of Mallarmé’s projected long poem in four parts, by far the poet’s most personal work, and one he could never bring himself to complete.…
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Mallarme In Prose

Nonfiction by Stéphane Mallarmé

This volume contains never-before translated prose selections by the father of the Symbolist movement, one of the most influential cultural figures of 19th-century France. Mallarmé’s letters to leading French intellectuals and artists of the time appear with his pieces on language and aesthetics, as he considers the state of contemporary French literature. There are also lighter reflections on life, fashion, and the performing arts (some of Mallarmé’s fascinating essays on the ballet are included here).…
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Selected Poetry And Prose

by Stéphane Mallarmé

Selected Poetry and Prose of Stéphane Mallarmé presents what can be considered the essential work of the renowned “father of the Symbolists.” Mallarmé’s major elegies, sonnets, and other verse, including excerpts from the dialogue “Hériodiade,” are all assembled here with the French and English texts en face. Also included (not bilingually) are the visual poem “Dice Thrown Never Will Annul Chance” and the drama “Igitur,” as well as letters, essays, and reviews.…
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An avant-gardist, a wit, a salon keeper, a fashion commentator, a translator of Poe’s poems, a critic who supported the Impressionists and a forerunner of the Symbolist poets whose innovative ways with language had a significant impact on Modernism, Mallarmé himself was nothing less than a work of art.
—Grace Glueck, The New York Times
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