Les villes tentaculaires
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Author | Émile Verhaeren |
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Original title | Les Villes tentaculaires |
Language | French |
Genre | Symbolist poetry |
Published | 1895 |
Publisher | Edmond Deman |
Publication place | Belgium |
Media type | |
Original text | Les Villes tentaculaires at French Wikisource |
Les villes tentaculaires (transl. The Tentacular Towns, sometimes rendered "The Great Cities" or "The Many-Tentacled Town") is a volume of Symbolist poetry in French by the Belgian Émile Verhaeren, first published in 1895 by Edmond Deman, with a frontispiece by Théo van Rysselberghe. It established the poet's European reputation,[1][2] and his stature as "a true pioneer of Modernism".[3] The loose theme of the collection is modern urban life and the transformation of the countryside by urban sprawl.[4]
The theme of urban sprawl had already been broached in Verhaeren's 1893 collection Les campagnes hallucinées ("The hallucinated fields").[5] The two collections were generally printed together in one volume from 1904 onwards.
Contents
[edit]In the 18th edition of the joint publication Les Villes tentaculaires, précédées des Campagnes hallucinées (Paris, 1920), the poems included were as follows. A few of the poems have been published in English translation by Will Stone.
- Les campagnes hallucinées
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Verhaeren_-_Les_Campagnes_hallucin%C3%A9es%2C_1893.djvu/page7-220px-Verhaeren_-_Les_Campagnes_hallucin%C3%A9es%2C_1893.djvu.jpg)
- La ville[6]
- Les plaines
- Chanson de fou
- Le donneur de mauvais conseils
- Chanson de fou
- Pèlerinage
- Chanson de fou
- Les fièvres
- Chanson de fou
- Le péché
- Chanson de fou
- Les mendiants[7]
- La kermesse
- Chanson de fou
- Le fléau
- Chanson de fou[8]
- Le départ
- La bêche
- Les villes tentaculaires
- La plaine[9]
- L'âme de la ville[10]
- Une statue
- Les cathédrales
- Une statue
- Le port
- Les spectacles
- Les promeneuses
- Une statue
- Les usines
- La bourse
- Le bazar
- L'étal
- La révolte
- Au musée
- Une statue
- La mort
- La recherche
- Les idées
- Vers le futur
References
[edit]- ^ David Gullentops, "La réception de Verhaeren aux Pays-Bas", Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, 77:3 (1999), pp. 739-750.
- ^ Jan Robaey, "Verhaeren en Italie: Ambiguïtés d'une fortune littéraire", Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, 77:3 (1999), pp. 765-786.
- ^ Émile Verhaeren, Poems, translated by Will Stone (Todmorden, Arc Publications, 2014), p. 26.
- ^ Patrick Abercrombie, "The Many-Tentacled Town: The Vision of Emile Verhaeren", The Town Planning Review, 3:2 (1912), pp. 133-149.
- ^ Stefan Zweig, Émile Verhaeren, translated by J. Bithell (London, Constable and co., 1914), pp. 100-106. Available through Project Gutenberg.
- ^ Partially translated by Will Stone as "The Town (excerpt)"
- ^ Translated by Will Stone as "The Beggars"
- ^ Translated by Will Stone as "Madman's Song"
- ^ Translated by Will Stone as "The Plain"
- ^ Translated by Will Stone as "The Soul of the Town"