French French French

First week of French class: successfully completed! Here, let me share with you a poem we translated in class. (Yes, we are already translating poems. No wasting time here!)

Chanson d'automne
Paul Verlaine (1866)

The long sobs
of the violins
of the autumn
wound my heart
with a dull
lethargy.

All suffocating
and pale, when
the hour sounds
I remember
the old days
and I weep.

And I depart
on the ill wind
which carries me
hither, thither
like a
dead leaf.

Ah, nineteenth century poetry, how I love you and your wallowing in emotion. I want to name a story after this poem now. Technically it is too late for a Les Mis story, but eh, minor difficulties.

It occurs to me that, though moderns tend to criticize people of the 19th century (although perhaps not so much the 19th century French) for being repressed - the main criticism of this sort of Romantic poem is that it's too much, too over-the-top, too unrestrained.

***

We've also started reading excerpts from Le Comte de Monte Cristo. I think they must be simplified, but I'm not sure...Does Monte Cristo have ridiculously short chapters?

And what is it with nineteenth century French authors and prisons, you guys? Is there any other literary tradition quite this obsessed with prisons?

***

Have not progressed on Les Mis since we last spoke. However, I do come bearing a pair of Eponine & Cosette stories (which might also be read as Eponine/Cosette, although I kind of think they're tagged that way because pairing stories get more readers. Certainly if I can possibly tag a story as a pairing story, I always do.)

( Recs recs )