Elles: A Bilingual Anthology of Modern French Poetry by Women

269 Pages·1995·10 MB·English

by  Martin Sorrell

A Bilingual Anthology
of Modern French Poetry by Women
Elles
•
Compiled and translated by Martin Sorrell
with an afterword by Jacqueline Chenieux-Gendron
Elles
A Bilingual Anthology
of Modern French Poetry by Women
Elles introduces English-speaking readers to some of
the best French poetry published by women over the
last twenty years. Martin Sorrell has chosen work from
seventeen distinctive and diverse poets and provided
lively translations alongside the originals. Each poet
introduces herself with an essay on her conception of
poetry and her own position as a writer.
Martin SorreU is Senior Lecturer in French at the
University of Exeter. Several of his translations of
French poems have been broadcast on BBC Radio. In
his Introduction to Biles, he situates the poets in their
context and discusses the issues which confronted him
as compiler and translator, not least as a man respond
ing to creative work written by women.
Jacqueline Chenieux-Gendron is Director of Re
search at the Centre National de la Recherche Scien
tifique in Paris, and is a leading specialist in modern
French literature.

Elles
A Bilingual Anthology
of Modern French Poetry by Women
Compiled and translated by
Martin Sorrell
with an afterword by
Jacqueline Chenieux-Gendron
UNIVERSITY
of
EXETER
PRESS
First published in 1995 by
University of Exeter Press
Reed Hall, Streatham Drive
Exeter, Devon EX4 4QR
UK
www.ex.ac.ukluepl
Printed on demand since 2002
Copyright:
This selection © University of Exeter Press 1995
Introduction and English translations © Martin Sorrell 1995
Afterword © Jacqueline Chenieux-Gendron 1995
Biography and essay on Marguerite Yourcenar © Sally A. Wallis 1995
All other biographies and essays in French,
and the original French poems,
are the copyright of the individual poets
and publishers listed in the Acknowledgements
of this book (pp. 258-259), which constitute
an extension of lhis copyright statement.
No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permisSion
of the copyright bolder.
British Library Cataloguiug in Publication Data
A catalogue record for tbis book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 0 85989 448 7
Typeset in Plantin Ligbt
by Colin Bakke Typesetting, Exeter
Printed by Lightning Source
For Claire, with love

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION by Martin Sorrell 1
MARIE-CLAIRE BANCQUART . 11
CHRISTIANE BAROCHE 25
GENEVIEVE BON 38
CLAUDE DE BURINE 50
ANDREE CHEDlD . 63
LOUISE HERLIN 77
JEANNE HYVRARD 89
LESLIE KAPLAN 105
JOSEE LAPEYRERE 116
JO-ANN LEON 131
ANNE PORTUGAL 147
GISELE PRASSINOS 158
JACQUELINE RISSET 173
AMINA SAXD ... 187
SILVIA BARON SUPERVIELLE 198
MARGUERITE YOURCENAR 211
CELINE ZINS 225
EPILOGUE by Jacqueline Chenieux-Gendron 235
AFTERWORD (English version of the EPIWGUE) 245
INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES 255
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . 258
'Voyez comme aujourd'hui les femmes ont l'honneur'
(Soeuf Anne de Marquets, 1533·-1588)
'A mesure que Ie sommei! abandonne mes paupieres,
je sens, dans tout mon etre, un doux fremissement
qui m'annonce une saison nouvelle'
(lvlarie-Emilie de Montanclos, 1736-1812)
INTRODUCTION
T HERE exists a very substantial body of poetry writ
ten or published by Frenchwomen during the last
twenty years. If their books do not vanish from sight,
then they may persuade future literary historians that this
period was something of a golden age. It was not always so.
Look back down the centuries and it is no easy matter to dis
cover the names, let alone the work, of more than a handful
of women poets. The irony is that, probably as a direct con
sequence of their rarity, such as did exist have acquired virtu
ally iconic status. The most ancient perhaps are the most
revered. Christine de Pisan, Marguerite de Navarre, Louise
Labe are remote and secure in their late Medieval and
Renaissance fastness. Then, after almost three centuries of
apparent infertility, we meet: Marceline Desbordes-Valmore,
richly romantic and Romantic; Louise Ackermann, nine
teenth century as well, full of pre-modernist angst; Anna de
Noailles, twentieth century but still Romantic and Classical;
Catherine Pozzi, sharply modern but rooted nonetheless in
the Renaissance; Marie Noel, innocently at large in this cruel
century; Adrienne Monnier, powerful and unftamboyantly
modern; Louise de Vilmorin, worldly and self-mockingly
modern; Joyce Mansour, in touch with Surrealism's raging
violence.l
This cannot be called a long list, stretching as it does over
five centuries. Within it, what is more, certain names are
scarcely famous. The question which asks why so many
women writers are forgotten, a question now properly estab
lished in academic enquiry, ensures that it is no longer
possible to discard inconvenient writing simply as bad: the