Poèmes, 1887-1897. Les Gammes, Les Fastes, Petits Poèmes D'automne, Le Jeu Des Épées (French Edition)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Une Voix dans la Foule: Poèmes (Classic Reprint) (French Edition)
(Excerpt from Une Voix dans la Foule: Poèmes
Mais le roi,...)
Excerpt from Une Voix dans la Foule: Poèmes
Mais le roi, se sachant mourir, ferme les yeux, Et rêve aux temps lointains où, devant une reine, Il se prosterna, lui, fils des dieux et des cieux.
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Les Gammes: Vers (Classic Reprint) (French Edition)
(Excerpt from Les Gammes: Vers
Comme un appel strident de...)
Excerpt from Les Gammes: Vers
Comme un appel strident de naiade en péril L'hymne vibre en le vert de la forêt pâlie D'où répond, note à note, écho qui se délie.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
(Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)
Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. This means that we have checked every single page in every title, making it highly unlikely that any material imperfections – such as poor picture quality, blurred or missing text - remain. When our staff observed such imperfections in the original work, these have either been repaired, or the title has been excluded from the Leopold Classic Library catalogue. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, within the book we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience. If you would like to learn more about the Leopold Classic Library collection please visit our website at www.leopoldclassiclibrary.com
THE WHITE TOMB: SELECTED WRITINGS (Classic American Poets Series, 3)
(The publication of THE WHITE TOMB is literary archeology ...)
The publication of THE WHITE TOMB is literary archeology at its best. Merrill, an American, stood at the center of the international literary world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, living in Paris, belonging to the inner circle surrounding Mallarme, and defending Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman when such associations could still be damaging. However, since Merrill wrote his own work almost exclusively in French, French-speakers have tended to see him as American while English-speakers have found his work inaccessible to them. Now, a host of respected poets and scholars have translated a sizable selection of Merrill's poems and essays, allowing this fascinating writer to at last be widely read and appreciated in his native language.
Les Fastes: (Thyrses - Sceptres - Torches). (French Edition)
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
Stuart Fitzrandolph Merrill was born on August 1, 1863, at Hempstead, New York. He was the eldest of three children. His father, George Merrill, a lawyer in New York City, came of a New England family. His name was originally Tibbetts, but he was adopted by an uncle by marriage, Nathaniel Wilson Merrill. Stuart's mother, Emma Fitz Randolph Laing, was the daughter of William L. Laing of Virginia, who went north with his family about 1840 and settled at Hempstead. Her grandmother is said to have been French. In 1866 George Merrill was appointed counselor to the American Legation in Paris. He was a man of strict and gloomy religious principles, and he obliged his family to lead in Paris, as far as possible, the same order of life they would have led in a New England village.
Education
When Stuart was twelve years old he was sent as a border to the Lycée at Vanves, a suburb of Paris. He stayed here till 1879, when he was removed to the Lycée Fontaines (now Condorcet). Here as at Vanves he proved a good scholar and obtained a high rank in his classes. He joined certain of his schoolfellows in starting a little magazine called Le Fou. One of the contributors was René Ghil, destined to be a leader of the Symbolist movement and to have some influence on Merrill's development as a poet. Merrill's contributions to the magazine reveal a poetic temperament and prove that he already possessed the technique of French versification. He took his degree in 1884. But whatever plans he had made to lead an artist's life in Paris were frustrated by his father who decided that the family must return to New York. There he became a very unwilling student at the Columbia Law School.
Career
Merrill's main interest was in literature, and in Washington Square, where he lived, he prepared his first book of poems, Les Gammes, and sent it to Paris. It was published in 1887 by Léon Vanier, and was dedicated to René Ghil, who saw it through the press, distributed it to the critics, and wrote a notice of it himself. When he wrote Les Gammes and Les Fastes, which followed four years after, Merrill was interested only in exteriors and decoration, and for him to accept the noise and turmoil and passion of life at all they must come to him in symbols. It was not till much later that he gave expression to his vision of the world and to the love and anguish of his heart. In these two early books are some poems which he never surpassed. The influence of English poetry, which may be remarked in them, came principally from William Morris' "Defence of Guenevere, " and in a much less degree from Rossetti and Swinburne and Wilde. Morris was Merrill's ideal man, and Morris' brand of socialism, with artistic beauty as a cure for all ills, Merrill kept all his life, though in his later years it became tinged with Tolstoyism. In the autumn of 1890, Merrill came to America to please his mother. On the way home, he spent some weeks in London, where he came to know Oscar Wilde, then at the height of his fame. Their friendship continued till Wilde's downfall in 1895. Merrill remained only five months in New York. Here he prepared his new book, Les Fastes, which was published in Paris at the end of 1891 with a dedication to Howells.
During this winter he was an unfailing attendant upon Wagnerian opera. Wagner was one of the great influences of his life, as he was for most of the Symbolists. Another great influence was Walt Whitman. With him Merrill had an interview at a New York hotel. Whitman's humanitarian theory, his respect for individual freedom, Merrill entirely adopted. He returned to Paris in May 1891, and became one of the managers of the New Théâtre d'Art, founded as a protest against the commercial and realist theatres. He was back again in New York in the autumn, but in 1892 left America for the last time. As he was sailing, a letter from Howells was put into his hands, urging him to be an American poet and to write in English. Merrill did write some verses in English, but they have none of his special merits. He now furnished an apartment on the Quai Bourbon which became famous in the annals of Symbolism, for therein gathered many of the young writers and painters. He began to lead the life of a poet of the Latin Quarter, and whenever this life became too much for him he retired to the country or traveled; fashionable social life he sedulously avoided. He lost all contact with America and in his later years had almost the same views about the United States as a Frenchman who has never been there. He had a house at Marlotte in the Forest of Fontainebleau. There he wrote Petits Poèmes d'Automne (1895) and Les Quatre Saisons (1900), which show a complete alteration in his conception of poetry and poetic expression.
In 1905 the woman who had lived with him so many years left him to marry another man. This departure threw Merrill into a state of demoralization. He cut himself off from general life. For some time he was hardly ever sober. He traveled at random. But out of this morbid condition arose his greatest work, Une Voix dans la Foule (1909). The section called "Les Cris dans la Nuit" contains some of the best poetry of the kind in French literature. Here he made what is perhaps the most stirring appeal for the wretched which had been heard in France since Victor Hugo. Pity for all who suffered had become the keynote of his life. His wanderings took him to Belgium where he was extremely well received by the young writers, who regarded him as a master. He made the acquaintance of a family named Rion, who lived at Forêt, a suburb of Brussels. After traveling for a while they settled permanently at Versailles in a beautiful house at 22 Boulevard de Roi. After his marriage Merrill published little, but his papers show that he had many projects, and he kept up a considerable correspondence with his friends. The sight of the funeral of a British soldier at Versailles inspired his poem "Tommy Atkins, " an entirely new expression of his art, which was published after his death, which occurred rather suddenly on December 1, 1915. In 1925 appeared Prose et Vers, an interesting volume containing some of his prose sketches and criticism and some hitherto unpublished poems.
The youth of twenty had arrived in New York with his socialist convictions already strong. He campaigned for Henry George and took up the defense of the eight Chicago anarchists condemned to death in 1886.
Personality
In 1913, Merrill engaged in an unfortunate controversy with Guillaume Apollinaire concerning the morals of Walt Whitman, in which he made ferocious onslaughts on puritanism. The World War was the second crisis in his life, and this time he did not recover. It is necessary to realize Merrill's idealism, his dreams of human fraternity, to understand what the war meant to him. He thought of joining the French army, but his state of health made that impossible. He aided as he could several whom the war had reduced to misery, and wandered inconsolably in Versailles and Paris. He had left instructions that he was to be buried without religious ceremonies. His amiable personality has become a legend. Although he spoke French like a Frenchman and German quite well he was generally recognized as an American.
Quotes from others about the person
Not long before his death, the great Belgian poet Verhaeren wrote to him: "For me, you are as a flame and a glowing hearth at which I warm my hands. "
Connections
In the summer of 1908, Merrill married Claire Rion, who was about eighteen years old.