This is an English-language translation of the first, second, and fourth books of poetry by Francis Vielé-Griffin (AD 1864-1937): April Harvest (Cueille d¿avril, 1885), Swans (Les Cygnes, 1887), and Joys (Joies, 1889) from the early years of the French poet¿s life.
Francis Vielé-Griffin was an American by birth, having been born in Virginia. As a boy of seven or eight years old, he was sent to France to attend school; he remained. By 21 years old, and fully proficient in French, he was an adherent, and one of the principal and early practitioners, of the Symbolist movement in poetry, which grew out of the Decadent movement. A close friend of Stéphane Mallarmé, he was also a great believer in free verse.
In his own words, Griffin says this (from Joys): "The verse is free verse; - which means nothing more than that the ¿old¿ Alexandrine with one or more ¿cæsura,¿ with or without ¿rejet¿ or ¿enjambment,¿ is abolished or done away with; but, more generally, [it means] that no fixed form is considered as the necessary mold anymore for the expression of all poetic thought; that from now on, consciously free this time, the Poet will obey the personal rhythm that must be, without M. de Banville or any other ¿legislator of Parnassus¿ intervening; and, finally, that talent shall resplend in different ways than by the traditional or illusory ¿vanquished difficulties¿ of rhetorical poetics: Art is not merely learnt, it recreates itself continually; it does not live by tradition, but by evolving."
In the appendix is an extant chapter ("His Thought") from Francis Vielé-Griffin: Son Oeuvre, Son Pensée, Son Art, by Jean de Cours.
On the cover is Fontainbleau: Black Oaks of Bas-Bréau by Camille Corot, oil on paper, 1830s.
