Les Villes tentaculaires
 | |
| Author | Émile Verhaeren |
|---|---|
| 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
- La Ville[a]
- 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[b]
- La Kermesse
- Chanson de fou
- Le Fléau
- Chanson de fou[c]
- Le Départ
- La Bêche
- Les Villes tentaculaires
- La Plaine[d]
- L'Âme de la ville[e]
- 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
Notes
[edit]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.