Overview

Louisa Siefert was a prolific poet, critic, playwright, and novelist who published many works that were bestsellers in nineteenth-century France. This bilingual critical edition of Siefert’s Les Stoïques (1870) aims to restore Louisa Siefert’s intellectual legacy while providing ample material for further scholarship on her unique poetic voice. Siefert’s intellectual power and aesthetic originality are especially pronounced in her Les Stoïques, a volume that exemplifies her transdisciplinary mind and rich sonnet practice. The more than forty poems collected here are presented in the original French with masterful translations into English by Norman R. Shapiro, one of the most highly regarded English translators of French poetry. Shapiro’s inspired translations of Siefert’s texts give readers gain a sense of her prosodic mastery and flair as well as the way she uses poetry to think about the relation between mind and body. In her introduction, Adrianna M. Paliyenko reconstructs from original archival research the reception of Les Stoïques from May 1870 to the present, describing how many nineteenth-century readers considered Siefert’s philosophical verse to be central to her contribution to French poetic history and, in turn, how the gendering of poetic expression and the canon sidelined Siefert’s intellectual accomplishment. A monumental achievement, this book brings the work of a major French poet to a broader audience. Siefert’s poetic primer on the Stoic way of thinking about why humans suffer or find serenity and joy, and other big questions of life, will strike a chord with modern readers.

Full Product Details

Author:   Louisa Siefert ,  Norman R. Shapiro (Wesleyan University) ,  Adrianna M. Paliyenko (Colby College)
Publisher:   Pennsylvania State University Press
Imprint:   Pennsylvania State University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.399kg
ISBN:  

9780271095530

ISBN 10:   0271095539
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   29 August 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

A Note About the Translator Acknowledgments Reading Les Stoïques Anew THE STOICS (1870) Dédicace / Dedication Le Départ / Leaving Au large / At Sea Soupir / Sighs Immortalité / Immortality Lune d’avril / April Moon Jour tombant / Dying Day Bonheur / Happiness La Combe / The Valley Automnales / Autumnalia Soir d’hiver / Winter Eve Les Vieilles Gens / The Old Folks “Tous les rires d’enfant ont les mêmes dents blanches . . .” / “The same white gleam in all children’s laughter . . .” “Il sera grand & fort, il est déjà si tendre . . .” / “Tall and strong will he be, so gentle too . . .” “Pour ce petit enfant tant d’espoirs & d’alarmes . . .” / “For this babe, so much hope, so many fears . . .” “Ce soir, quand la ville engourdie . . .” / “This evening, when the town, chilled numb . . .” “Car, ô pauvres parents navrés . . .” / “For, O poor parents, when child dies . . .” Au long des quais / Along the Embankments Le Premier Froid / The First Chill À ce qui n’est plus / For What Exists No More “L’orage a passé; mais les flots sont durs . . .” / “The storm is past; still, the waves brutally . . .” Sotto voce / Sotto voce Chanson triste / Sad Song “Et je pense à la mort, & toujours cette idée . . .” / “And so I think of death; ever that thought . . .” Temps perdu / Time Lost “La tristesse a vaincu, je souffre & je me tais . . .” / “Sadness has won, silent my suffering . . .” Promenade d’automne / Autumn Stroll “Jadis enfant joyeuse & folle . . .” / “A child was I, gay, undeterred . . .” “Ô privilèges saints que Dieu m’accorde encor . . .” / “O sacred favors God yet grants to me . . .” “Inutile! ce mot pèse sur bien des fronts . . .” / “‘Useless’? Word that weighs hard on many a brow . . .” “L’amour! un mot encor, mais sublime & sauvage . . .” / “‘Love’! Simple word . . . One that—savage, sublime . . .” “Un cimetière aux champs est chose rassurante . . .” / “A country graveyard comforting appears . . .” “Je ne puis feuilleter mes livres, mon trésor . . .” / “Scarce can I leaf through treasured books, than there . . .” “C’est vrai, j’ai peu d’égards aux vains regrets d’autrui . . .” / “True it is, I care little for the ills . . .” Sur la première page de Joseph Delorme / On the Title Page of Joseph Delorme La Divine Tragédie / The Divine Tragedy Le Sacrifice d’Abraham / Abraham’s Sacrifice “Le ciel est sombre, il pleut, &, la tête lassée . . .” / “The sky is dark with rain. My brow, distraught . . .” La Pierre d’attente / Marianne’s Bust “À l’honneur du combat qu’importe la victoire . . .” / “What matters victory to combat’s course . . .” “Ô morts qui ressemblez à des apothéoses . . .” / “O you, apotheosis-like dead souls . . .” “Quand Jésus s’en allait de bourgade en bourgade . . .” / “When Jesus went from town to town . . .” Épilogue / Epilogue Appendix: Selected Pages from Louisa Siefert’s Papers Notes Bibliography Index of Poems General Index

Reviews

“Paliyenko and Shapiro provide readers with the opportunity to discover an underrated yet gifted nineteenth-century French poet in a bilingual edition that is powerfully supported by the introduction, notes, and bibliography. The Stoics situates itself within a vibrant movement to rediscover and reassess female writers, and the case is eloquently made for a revision of Siefert’s position in the canon.” —Rosemary Lloyd,Emerita Fellow, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge

Paliyenko and Shapiro provide readers with the opportunity to discover an underrated yet gifted nineteenth-century French poet in a bilingual edition that is powerfully supported by the introduction, notes, and bibliography. The Stoics situates itself within a vibrant movement to rediscover and reassess female writers, and the case is eloquently made for a revision of Siefert's position in the canon. -Rosemary Lloyd, Emerita Fellow, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge

Author Information

Adrianna M. Paliyenko is Arnold Bernhard Professor in Arts and Humanities at Colby College. She is the author of Genius Envy: Women Shaping French Poetic History, 1801–1900 and the editor of volumes on nineteenth-century French women writers Madame A. Cashin, Anaïs Ségalas, Marie Krysinska, and Louisa Siefert.

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