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steveatwaywords's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
I read this volume inside the larger collected works of Gautier, a 1903 edition, Vol 24, by FC de Sumichrast. Why? Because too few of Gautier's works have been translated into English and made widely available. This was the only copy in Michigan!
And so, I was anxious to enjoy the works, especially "Albertus," one of his first published poems. I was disheartened to see that Agnes Lee, who did so much translating of his Gautier, chose here to translate the verse into prosody. I am unsure what motivated her decision. Equally, I was intrigued and a bit enlightened to find early utterances of Gautier's "Art for Art's Sake" theme (as an overwhelming moral message here), it overlapping with no small amount of authorial intrusion (including the name of the titular character who--though meeting with a tragic end--shares Gautier's code/nick-name in his circle of writers).
Finally, I should not have been surprised to find sections of Gautier's gothic imagination falling too easily to cliché and hyperbole, amateurish asides, etc. --even while other sections hinted at his more lean and mature styling to come. And while I was not put off by the lasciviousness of his language (he was a sensualist, after all), his prejudices of the mid 19th-century now appear here as strongly anti-Semitic and racist, at times.
My rating then is for the experience of discovering Gautier rather than for the quality of all of his early writing.
And so, I was anxious to enjoy the works, especially "Albertus," one of his first published poems. I was disheartened to see that Agnes Lee, who did so much translating of his Gautier, chose here to translate the verse into prosody. I am unsure what motivated her decision. Equally, I was intrigued and a bit enlightened to find early utterances of Gautier's "Art for Art's Sake" theme (as an overwhelming moral message here), it overlapping with no small amount of authorial intrusion (including the name of the titular character who--though meeting with a tragic end--shares Gautier's code/nick-name in his circle of writers).
Finally, I should not have been surprised to find sections of Gautier's gothic imagination falling too easily to cliché and hyperbole, amateurish asides, etc. --even while other sections hinted at his more lean and mature styling to come. And while I was not put off by the lasciviousness of his language (he was a sensualist, after all), his prejudices of the mid 19th-century now appear here as strongly anti-Semitic and racist, at times.
My rating then is for the experience of discovering Gautier rather than for the quality of all of his early writing.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Antisemitism and Racism
odysseusta's review against another edition
1.0
This was a disappointing collection, as I have enjoyed Gautier's fiction in translation, as well as some poems I've come across in other anthologies. The translator for this edition was Agnes Lee, and I'm not sure who's at fault here, but these poems were dull, in a style that I believe was archaic at the time of publication (1906), that sapped any life these poems may have had in their original language.
I would recommend avoiding this freely available version at all costs, and look for a better, perhaps more recent, translation.
louiseackermann's review against another edition
5.0
J'ai un inexplicablement immense amour pour les noms de matières précieuses (marbre laiteux, perle, nacre, satin, émail...) alors quand ils se retrouvent dans les octosyllabes parfaits de Théophile Gautier, mon cœur ne résiste pas ❣
D'ailleurs je m'autoproclamerais bien Muse Anachronique de Gautier si ma connexion toute particulière à sa poésie n'était pas due au fait que c'est celle que je rêve d'écrire...
"Ses paupières battent des ailes
Sur leurs globes d'argent bruni,
Et l'on voit monter ses prunelles
Dans la nacre de l'infini."
*
"Ses yeux, où le ciel se reflète,
Mêlent à leur azur amer,
Qu'étoile une humide paillette,
Les teintes glauques de la mer."
*
"Les dieux eux-mêmes meurent,
Mais les vers souverains
Demeurent
Plus forts que les airains.
Sculpte, lime, cisèle ;
Que ton rêve flottant
Se scelle
Dans le bloc résistant !"
D'ailleurs je m'autoproclamerais bien Muse Anachronique de Gautier si ma connexion toute particulière à sa poésie n'était pas due au fait que c'est celle que je rêve d'écrire...
"Ses paupières battent des ailes
Sur leurs globes d'argent bruni,
Et l'on voit monter ses prunelles
Dans la nacre de l'infini."
*
"Ses yeux, où le ciel se reflète,
Mêlent à leur azur amer,
Qu'étoile une humide paillette,
Les teintes glauques de la mer."
*
"Les dieux eux-mêmes meurent,
Mais les vers souverains
Demeurent
Plus forts que les airains.
Sculpte, lime, cisèle ;
Que ton rêve flottant
Se scelle
Dans le bloc résistant !"
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