Class Finale!

The last NEP class will meet at the Bear Trap at 4:30pm April 28. 

De laatste NEP klasse zal bij de Val van de Beer bij 4:30 p.m. 28 April samenkomen.

A última classe do NEP reunir-se-á na armadilha do urso 4:30 pm no 28 de abril.

Последний тип нэпа встречает на ловушке медведя на 4:30 pm 28-ое апреля.

La clase ultima del NEP se reunirá en el desvío del oso en 4:30 P.M. el 28 de abril.

Η τελευταία NEP κλάση θα συναντηθεί στην παγίδα αρκούδων στις 28 Απριλίου 4:30pm.

La dernière classe de NEP se réunira au piège d'ours à 16h30 au 28 avril.

Abdelwahab Meddeb

In France, poets go on talk shows and argue about politics, and then people who disagree with them go to the trouble of making derisive YouTube montages of their comments.

This link is of interest too. Are there American poets who maintain this level of socio-political engagement? Why not?

Interview and Reading/Recital with André VELTER

One of these is a reading André Velter did with flamenco guitarist Pedro Soler; the other is an interview in which Velter talks about collaboration with musicians, among other things.

FRANCE, LUXEMBOURG, AND SWITZERLAND

Here, for your reading pleasure, we present expert information about France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. We've started with a very brief history of French poetry, followed by surveys of the oh-so-linguistically-complicated Luxembourg and Switzerland. Then you'll find the beginnings of a discussion about national identity in the poems and in the anthology, which we hope to continue in class. Last but not least, we've posted two poems by Bruno Grégoire, for several reasons: we think it would be fun to have a more focused discussion of a poem or two; we found the poems to be among our favorites in the anthology so far; and, the poems embody a lot of specific anxiety of identity that correspond with our questions about the section as a whole. Hope you enjoy!

And, of course, useful phrases:

German:
I am going to beat you to death: Ich gehe zu schlagen Sie zu Tode.
My hovercraft is full of eels: Mein Luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller Aale.

French:
I am going to beat you to death: Je vais te cassé la goule.
My hovercraft is full of eels: Mon aéroglisseur est plein des anguilles.

A CONCISE HISTORY OF FRENCH POETRY

Compiled by Kristin Aardsma

In the 13th century there was a common use of strict form including octosyllabic rhyming couplets, ten-syllable assonanced strophes. Medieval French lyric poetry came from Southern France. The poets were called occitan troubadors and they invented a style of poetry that focused on complex love codes called, fin amors or courtly love.

Late in the 13th century there was a loss of strict form and subject matter (fin amors) to more secular subject matter (ex: "Roman de Fauvel" which is a satire about the abuses of the church).

In the early 16th century poets focused on sonorous experimentation by les Grands Rhétoriqueurs (de Belges, Molinet) before Petrarch influenced them along with Greek revival, centered around Pindar and Anacreon influences. Poets began writing lots and lots of sonnets and Clément Marot and Mellin de Saint-Gelais are cited as having written the first sonnets in French.

During the middle of the 16th century, French poets were still writing lots of sonnets, Pindarian odes, mythology, and blason of female form.

De Baïf and de Vigenère attempted to meter French poetry but because the French is not a heavily stressed language and does not have many long or short syllables, it was difficult to follow the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew poetic meters (called vers mesurés).

At the end of the 16th century there was a lot of pessimistic poetry, probably due to the civil war.

During the 17th century l'honnête homme (the honest man) poetry became one of the principal modes of literary production of noble gentlemen and of non-noble professional writers in their patronage.

During both the 17th and 18th centuries poetry was used for everything: births, deaths, weddings, wars. It was also the main form of theatre. Poets during this time also wrote epics and satires.

Poetic games became popular in salons and those poems often contained intense metaphorical language, epigrams, satirical verse. Many intelligent and noble women, called les précieuses (the preciousness) wrote this poetry, and were often mocked by men.

By the 18th century, forms (esp. sonnet) were avoided and poems began to look more like prose.

Some famous french classicists: de Fontaine, Racine, Boileau-Despréaux

Hugo was HUGE-O by the 19th century. There was lots of realism, symbolism, and fin de siècle ("end of the century," often marked by decadence in moral vision).

There was a turn toward the objective by the middle of the 19th century. Poets began to focus on strict form and emotional detachment. Baudelaire became popular because of his naturalism (read: pessimism and matter-of-fact bleakness). Mallarmé and Rimbaud fought against the standard of poetry and strove for more symbolism. In returning to form, poets again focused on the sonnet, which Baudelaire reinvented many times in les Fleurs du mal.

In the 20th century, Appollinaire invented Calligrammes (visual poetry), and poets began to write about urban life.

And then WWI happened. Thus came Dadaism: Freud's unconscious: Surrealism: parlor games like cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse) and lots of alcohol and drugs were attempts to unleash the unconscious mind.

Poets previously thought to be radical (Baudelaire and Rimbaud) were looked up to and the bourgeoisie was looked down upon.

Post-war: philosophical, phenomenological, existential ideas from Heidegger became popular.

2 POEMS FOR DISCUSSION, WITH QUESTIONS

These poems are on page 40 of the text, but we've also decided to post them to make sure everyone has a chance to read them closely.

Bruno Grégoire

White Siestas

At the moment I approach the shore, the white shores
under a sky of beams and rush, the refuge
of a lizard—its tongue, its drowning eyes.

The door rattles, the shutters—just barely,
under the light pressure of wind, where a whole world perishes,
a deaf pestle crushing, sun
in the ruined mortar of another world.

Cradled by the complaint or laughter of childhood
weapons are laid down outside; and liquid armfuls
in which grace cannot be contained; like water,
if not deep, refused, deserted,
I fell asleep, I asleep without finding sleep,
the sea birds, the storm clouds—


*How does the tone of the first two stanzas inform the subject matter?

--

Sanctuary

At the indefinite limits
of the city which goes to ground, at that border
littered with camels fettered together, there, where the animals live
—the sky thrust into their stomachs
by turbulent handfuls of stones, of sand—
where all my life leans into another body,
the shoulder of a child dares,
without guiding anyone along the blindness of streets—

where my hands are no longer mine in the way they brush
locks, forges, the fire
that is governed by your absence.


*How does place influence the poem artistically and politically?
*Who is the speaker and why did Grégoire choose this speaker?

QUESTION FOR BOTH POEMS:
*How is the identity of Other informed in each of these poems?