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A review by thewrittenword
The Poems of François Villon by François Villon
dark
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Perhaps the best translation of Villon in English, The Poems of François Villon collects the attributed works of the legendary poète maudit in one highly readable volume. Poet and translator Galway Kinnell translates in vibrant verse the fascinating jottings of the Medieval bard.
François Villon cuts one of the most intriguing and compelling personalities in literature. Living life to the fullest and seamiest in 1400s Paris he malingered in a difficult and sordid existence despite a high educational background. Jailed a number of times for accusations of murder and theft he lived a life of mystery with rumors of vagabondage and crime shadowing it. Arrested with another accusation of theft Villon was sentenced to be hanged when a last minute pardon reduced to banishment expelled him from the capital and from then on disappeared from history for good.
This volume includes his major works The Legacy and The Testament and a collection of shorter poems. The Legacy and The Testament are mock legacy scribblings of him leaving his imaginary will to numerous people. The writings are a compelling display of 15th Century Parisian life and are riveting in their depictions of people, places and events that serve as a canvas for the poet to draw inspiration from and use as a punching bag. The shorter poems are fresh observations on himself and the world around him including the famous "Ballade des dames du temps jadis" and "Ballade des pendus". At his best Villon's verse transcends the centuries as one feels the joy, pain, fear and sadness of a life lived on the margins of society where he portrays the world he lived in. The nobles, the wealthy, the poor, criminals, prostitutes, taverns, whorehouses, etc., paint a bustling panorama of a life distant and yet similar to ours. His shortcomings particularly with The Testament is a density of vague inscrutability where the poet seems to be talking to himself in a manner which only he can comprehend. The translation is also open to question: Kinnell clearly states in his introduction that he takes liberties throughout and even describes one of his acts as "impure". With such brazen admissions one wonders what in the translation is Villon's and what is Kinnell's.
The original bad boy of French lit, Villon set the trend of the subversive saga of the nation's unique and outstanding corpus: Rabelais, Sade, Laclos, Baudelaire, Lautréamont, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Barbey d'Aurevilly, L'Isle-Adam, Maupassant, Mirbeau, Huysmans, Lorrain, Céline, Genet, Guyotat, etc., all inherited their lineage from this dark and troubled figure. Enduring and endlessly riveting, Villon's legacy is one of the most inspiring and captivating in all of art.
François Villon cuts one of the most intriguing and compelling personalities in literature. Living life to the fullest and seamiest in 1400s Paris he malingered in a difficult and sordid existence despite a high educational background. Jailed a number of times for accusations of murder and theft he lived a life of mystery with rumors of vagabondage and crime shadowing it. Arrested with another accusation of theft Villon was sentenced to be hanged when a last minute pardon reduced to banishment expelled him from the capital and from then on disappeared from history for good.
This volume includes his major works The Legacy and The Testament and a collection of shorter poems. The Legacy and The Testament are mock legacy scribblings of him leaving his imaginary will to numerous people. The writings are a compelling display of 15th Century Parisian life and are riveting in their depictions of people, places and events that serve as a canvas for the poet to draw inspiration from and use as a punching bag. The shorter poems are fresh observations on himself and the world around him including the famous "Ballade des dames du temps jadis" and "Ballade des pendus". At his best Villon's verse transcends the centuries as one feels the joy, pain, fear and sadness of a life lived on the margins of society where he portrays the world he lived in. The nobles, the wealthy, the poor, criminals, prostitutes, taverns, whorehouses, etc., paint a bustling panorama of a life distant and yet similar to ours. His shortcomings particularly with The Testament is a density of vague inscrutability where the poet seems to be talking to himself in a manner which only he can comprehend. The translation is also open to question: Kinnell clearly states in his introduction that he takes liberties throughout and even describes one of his acts as "impure". With such brazen admissions one wonders what in the translation is Villon's and what is Kinnell's.
The original bad boy of French lit, Villon set the trend of the subversive saga of the nation's unique and outstanding corpus: Rabelais, Sade, Laclos, Baudelaire, Lautréamont, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Barbey d'Aurevilly, L'Isle-Adam, Maupassant, Mirbeau, Huysmans, Lorrain, Céline, Genet, Guyotat, etc., all inherited their lineage from this dark and troubled figure. Enduring and endlessly riveting, Villon's legacy is one of the most inspiring and captivating in all of art.