Thread: [French] gonflé comme...
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Old May 16, 2008, 02:53 PM
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Carolina del Norte, EEUU
Posts: 152
Native Language: Inglés estadounidense
gatitoverde will become famous soon enough
I was rather interested in that last one, so I threw it in a search engine by itself, and found it to be from Exaltation by Anna de Noailles (1876-1933). I've only included one stanza, that period of French poetry not being of particular interest to me:


Ah! vivre ainsi les jours qui mènent au tombeau,
Avoir le coeur gonflé comme le fruit qu'on presse
Et qui laisse couler son arôme et son eau,
Loger l'espoir fécond et la claire allégresse!

Ah! Like so, to live out my days, leading to the tomb;
To have a heart swollen up like fruit that I squeeze,
That lets its juices and aroma run;
To harbor fertile hope and bright joy!


And thusly, I affirm that I'm not much into turn of the century French poetry. Actually, to be fair, much French poetry had moved on by that point. She just hadn't caught up with the brave experimentation being conducted by many of her contemporaries. It's like reading something by the American Sara Teasdale, a contemporary of Pound, Carlos Williams, Moore, Eliot, etc. who still had her head stuck in the Victorian era.
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