French Poetry Resources

 

Learning French

You will need first to develop an ear for the syllabic nature of French verse. Try On Reading French Verse by R. Lewis (1982) or French Verse-Art A Study by C. Scott (1980), Introduction to French Poetry (Dual-Language) by Stanley Appelbaum (1991) or Poesie Francaise: Premiers Exercices d'Analyse by Jean-Paul Carton (1998). If you've forgotten your school French, then enroll on courses (worldlink, aflc, french classes and tutorgig) or work through books, tapes and CDs (rosetta stone, language quest, pimsleur, accelerated learning and unforgettable languages). These free sites will help: resources for learning French, French tutorial, guardian, bbc and learn French now.

English-French-English dictionaries can be found at: artfl, wordreference, french linguistics, ultralingua, lookwayup, dictionary.com, prompt online and lexilogos.

Machine translation can be helpful, though you will need some grammar to correct the rendering: omnilang, free translation, ibm, google, babelfish, systran, worldlingo, prompt and reverso.

Some useful language exchanges: friends abroad, xlingo, mylanguage exchange, polyglot learn language, and lingozone.

French Poetry

You can buy French poetry on CD at audio-france, a la page, audio-roots, 101 langue and mots et merveilles. The following offer a good selection of French poetry online: poetry international, lingshidao, french surrealist poetry, dmoz, poetry in translation, bartleby, and (in French only) poesie-française, toute la poesie, poesie webnet, club des poètes, poesie de marie, cedille, florilège, litterature francophone virtuelle, xxix century poets, athena and vive voix.

Ronsard

I. Silver's Ronsard and the Hellenic Renaissance in France (2 vols, 1961 & 1987) is more for specialists. Ronsard's poetry can be found at poésie française, lepg.org and extensive resources (in French) at calliope.

Racine

Internet sources include racine tricentenaire, abu-auteur, and lettres.net. Useful books: P. Butler's Racine: A Study (1974), G. Brereton's Racine: A Critical Biography (1973) and J. Lapp's Aspects of Racinian Tragedy (1955).

Paul Valéry

Sites featuring Valéry include island of xiphos, books and writers, @lalettre, cloutier, l'agora, apr, garp, and epstein.

Recommended books: W.N. Ince's The Poetic Theory of Paul Valéry (1961), C.M. Crow's Paul Valéry (1982), M. Philippon's Paul Valéry: une poétique en poèmes (1993), W. Putman's Paul Valéry Revisited (1995), W. Kluback's Paul Valéry: A Philosopher for Philosophers (1999) and P. Gifford's (ed.) Reading Paul Valéry ((1999).

Saint-John Perse

Sites featuring Saint John Perse include université sonore, noiraude.patoche, republique Des lettres, world literature laureates, saint-john perse and lehman.cluny — but the best is sjperse.org (in French, as most are). Useful books: R. Little's Saint-John Perse (1973), R.M. Galand's Saint-John Perse (1972), A Knodel's Saint-John Perse: A Study of his Poetry (1962) C. Rigolot's Forged Genealogies: Saint-John Perse's Conversations with Culture (2002) and R.L. Sterling's The Prose Works by Saint-John Perse (1994).

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