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Article: La Jeune Parque.(Review)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Modern Language Review
- Article date:
- October 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Modern Humanities Research Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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La Jeune Parque. By Paul Valery. Trans. by ALISTAIR ELLIOTT. French-English bilingual edition. Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books. 1997. 64 pp. 6.95 [pounds sterling].
It ought to be impossible to translate La Jeune Parque. There is no poem in French which reaches this sustained, algebraic density of language, this intimate concordance of music and sense, this intricate formal play of antithesis and symmetry in the use of leitmotif and symbol, or this summative power of echoing the poetic voices of France, all in the quintessentially French medium of the alexandrine. Yet Alistair Elliott, who recognizes and loves this poem's enigmatic brilliance, is entirely right to defy ...