Maldoror
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Maldoror
Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
This macabre but beautiful work, Les Chants de Maldoror, has achieved a considerable reputation as one of the earliest and most extraordinary examples of Surrealist writing.
Maldoror is a long narrative prose poem that celebrates the principle of Evil in an elaborate style, with a passion akin to religious fanaticism. The French poet-critic Georges Hugnet has written of Lautréamont: "He terrifies, stupefies, strikes dumb. He could look squarely at that which others had merely given a passing glance."
When first published in 1868-69, Maldoror went almost unnoticed. But in the 1890s, the book was rediscovered and hailed as a work of genius by such eminent writers as Huysmans, Léon Bloy, Maeterlinck, and Rémy de Gourmont. Later still, Lautréamont was to be canonised as one of their principal "ancestors" by the Paris surrealists.
This edition, translated by Guy Wernham, includes a long introduction to a never-written, or now lost, volume of poetry. Thus, except for a few letters, it gives all the surviving literary work of Lautréamont.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
William T. Vollmann praises Lautreamont's ability to craft "gorgeous" sentences that inspire repeated reading. André Breton describes the work as an expression of a revelation so profound it seems to transcend human capacity.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780811200820
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 17 January 1965
Country: United States
Imprint: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Contributors:
- Translated by Guy Wernham
- Translated by Guy Wernham
Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 25.0mm
Width: 132.0mm
Height: 203.0mm
Weight: 330g
Pages: 342
About the Author
Little is known of the author of Maldoror, Isidore Ducasse, self-styled Comte de Lautreamont, except that he was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1846 and died in Paris at the age of twenty-four. Guy Wernham, perhaps best known for his definitive translation of Maldoror, was associated with the Beat Poets.
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