Poetry
Rhapsodies 1831
Rhapsodies
Pétrus Borel · 1832
Opening lines
Il dort, mon Bénoni, bien moins souffrant sans doute,
C’est le premier sommeil qu’aussi longtemps il goûte ;
He sleeps, my Benoni, suffering far less, no doubt;
It is the first time he has tasted sleep so long;
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from fr.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Poems that blend the call to revolution, social injustice, the poverty of the artist and the laments of a thwarted love, in a violent language laden with images of captains, weapons and castles. A prose preface precedes them: in it the poet compares himself to the wolf-man, a primitive and free being, a stranger to polite society, and proclaims that his republicanism is lycanthropy.
Context
The collection appeared in Paris in 1832, from the bookseller Levavasseur, at the time when its author led the Petit Cénacle. It had little success, and yet a second edition came out in 1833. The nickname Lycanthrope has remained attached to its author. The English publisher dates the poems to 1831: the translation by John Gallas and Kurt Gänzl, published by Carcanet in 2022, bears this year in its title, and a selection of ten poems had appeared earlier under another title.
Who it is for
A collection of poems in a jarring, violent language; the preface, in prose, holds the attention as much as the verse and can be read separately.
Prizes and reception
Baudelaire wrote that without its author there would be a gap in Romanticism; the Surrealists were later inspired by him.
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