Hi,

As Phillip Gindre told you, I'm trying to annotate Smith's translations of French poetry.
Comparing with D. Sydney-Fryer'Emperor of Dreams, it appeared that several of thoses french translations are missing in this website, and consequently in my corpus : Here are the references :
- Le Coucher du Soleil romantique, the United Amateur, 1926,
- Epigraphe pour un livre condamné, Weird tales, March 1928,
- The Balcony, The Auburn Journal, 24/09/1925 (as Le Balcon),
- Beauty, the Auburn Journal, 12/03/1925 (la Beauté),
- Causerie, The Auburn Journal, 07/05/1925,
- the Evil Monk, the Auburn Journal, 10/12/1925, (as Le Mauvais Moine)
- La Mort des Artistes, Auburn Journal, 06/08/1925 (as Le Vin des Amants)

I wrote to Weird Tales and Lars Klores kindly send me a copy of "Epigraphe pour un livre condamné". Here it goes :

Bucolic reader, reader wholly
Simple, sober and benign,
Cast down this volume saturnine
And orgiaque and melancholy.

If thou hast learned no lessonry
Of Satan, wileful dean and wise,
Herein were naught for thy surmise,
And madness were my words to thee.

But if thy vision, unbeguiled,
Can dive adown the gulfs of hell,
Read me, and learn to love me well;

Tormented soul, alone, exiled,
And fain of some lost realm divine,
Pity me . . . lest my curse be thine.


I've contacted the Auburn Journal but don't have any reply yet.
Does any among you guys have "Le Coucher du Soleil romantique", the United Amateur, may 1926 ?


I have two questions, based on the simple fact that I, alas, don't have Smith's poetry collections in my bookshelves. May be some one can help :

The comparaison between the first (?) draft of Smith translation of Baudelaire "A Parisien Dream" as it is printed in Sword of Zagan and the translation on Eldritch - from the Selected Poems - show huge differences.
It suggested me to wonder if such is the case for other poems : Smith has been translating Baudelaire quite early and it seems he never totally left this activity.
1 - Thus, several poems might have more or less important modification from an edition to an other ;
2 - There was in the posthumous "Selected Poems" unpreviously published poems, but the texts of poems previously published was it the same than previous edition ? or was it from Smith papers with corrections of them ? Were there a posthumous correction, somehow ? - I'm afraid my writing skills in english are pretty poor (I realize how exotic it may sound) but I suppose you caught my point -

Second question :
In Baudelaire's Les Fleur du Mal, the organisation of the collection is in itself very important, meaningfull. In Baudelaire's case, it's most probably a reminicence of Petrarquism and french poetry of the XVI century, and motivated by the theme of "correspondances".
Is there such an tradition in english poetry ?
Well, I strongly suppose it is the case in Smith collections : organisation of poems making the collection itself a poem.
Would could provide me the order of the tables of contents of Smith collections ?

Warm regards,

David

Hiya David!

In partial answer to your question:

the poems in Selected Poems were chosen by Donald Sidney-Fryer. Therefore, whether he based his text upon the printed version of the books, or else upon latere, corrected versions, can be ascertained in part from a direct comparison of the books themselves, and in part from consultation with him. I suggest that you either locate the books directly, or enlist the services of an assistant with the relevant access to the books, to be absolutely certain.

Check what you can from the bibliography on this website about the books' contents: you may get most of what you need regarding the contents.

As for the missing translations, I suggest asking S. T. Joshi whether they will be included in the forthcoming volumes of CAS' collected poems, that he is co-editing. They should be. You can contact Mr. Joshi via his website.

As for correspondences, there is no real tradition, firm or otherwise, in Anglophone poetry. The closest that I have encountered is the poetry of Christopher Brennan, the Australian Symbolist, in relation to his Poems: 1913. You should be able to locate a copy of that easily enough, whether by ordering it in, or via Gavin Smith; I also recommend that you hunt up the volume of his prose, since that contains the relevant critical material, which is of great use in understanding Brennan's poetic aesthetic.

As for posthumous corrections, you would need to consult the editors, chiefly S. T. Joshi and Donald Sidney-Fryer, about that.

ciao!

Quote:

the poems in Selected Poems were chosen by Donald Sidney-Fryer.

I'm confused. I thought that CAS himself compiled the Selected Poems* between 1944 and 1949. That would make Donald Sidney-Fryer between ten and fifteen years old at the time I understand CAS was compiling the volume. Was the selection of poems radically revised later by Sidney-Fryer, or have I completely misread you, or gotten my facts wrong about when the Selected Poems volume was compiled? Just curious.


*(I assume that you are referring to the Arkham House edition published in 1971--not that I know of any other)

You're partly right.

CAS made the initial selection of poems for Selected Poems, however, posthumously, DSF took over and made the final selection of contents, especially the final sequences of the book itself.

For all intents and purposes, DSF respected CAS' choice, so that, although the translations may respect CAS' wishes as to those perpetuated, they also reflect DSF's choice as well, even if only to uphold the earlier decision.

What is more germane to remember is that we should see all the translations extant in the forthcoming volumes, so that is where we should be looking to at the moment, before looking at the choice of poems evident in Selected Poems -- until we know the whole range, it is impossible to be certain about the choices faced in the selection made.

Hi boys

Quote "the poems in Selected Poems were chosen by Donald Sidney-Fryer."

Well, I didn't know that. As DSF accepted to translate in english my
annotations about Smith verse to verse translations, I 'll ask him straight.

Quote "CAS made the initial selection of poems for Selected Poems".

Great to know that ! So one could try to establish the list of what CAS was expecting. DSF may help for that. Also, It may (pure hypothesis yet) point out that some already published verses had been corrected and thus were to be re-published.

Quote "As for the missing translations, I suggest asking S. T. Joshi whether they will be included in the forthcoming volumes of CAS' collected poems, that he is co-editing. They should be. You can contact Mr. Joshi via his website. "

I did contact Joshi, but don't have any answer yet. I did it quite reluctant. I'm not too sure S.T. Joshi is willing to share his material... I did notice he collected all the translation of french verses, including the unpublished ones. I suppose I'll have to wait for Collected Poems to have a chance to see them... However, I did not intend to wait for Mr Joshi to complete my study.


Quote "Check what you can from the bibliography on this website about the books' contents: you may get most of what you need regarding the contents."

Yeah, You're right, I found them here.

About getting help from an assistant... well, from here (France) it does not seem so easy...

Prosit,

DD

Hiya David!

Yep, it is a question of establishing what CAS wanted, and what resulted from bringing in DSF to complete the job.

It would be interesting, I feel, to compare that he felt over time reflected his ouevre, and what we have now; the later sections of Selected Poems, such as The Hill of Dionysius, were directly selected by DSF, but I know not of what his input was to the earlier selections, if any.

As for assistants, here is a good place to ask: all you need is someone with reasonable access to a book or books by CAS, to note down the contents in order.

You're right that S. T. is unlikely to share the poems with you, but he may help you as far as he can, or even further. I've had dealings with him, and have always found him open and helpful, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did what he could for you. You could always ask questions about the state of the manuscripts of the translations, whether there is evidence of emendations to the translations, etc. He may, further, be able to put you on track to any holding institution, where you can direct your enquiries.

I wish you all the best with your project.

ciao!