In this Book
- Poems of Guido Gezelle: A Bilingual Anthology
- Book
- 2016
- Published by: University College London
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
summary
The Bruges-born poet-priest Guido Gezelle (1830–1899) is generally considered one of the masters of 19th-century European lyric poetry. At the end of his life and in the first two decades of the 20th century, Gezelle was hailed by the avant-garde as the founder of modern Flemish poetry. His unique voice was belatedly recognised in the Netherlands and often compared with his English contemporary Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889).
In this bilingual anthology, award-winning translator Paul Vincent selects a representative picture of Gezelle’s output, from devotional through narrative, to celebratory and expressionistic. Gezelle’s favourite themes are childhood, the Flemish landscape, friendship, nature, religion and the Flemish vernacular, and his apparently simple poems conceal a sophisticated prosody and a dialogue with spiritual and literary tradition.
However, an important barrier to wider international recognition of his lyric genius up to now has been the absence of translations that do justice to the vigour and musicality of Gezelle’s West Flemish idiom. Two of the translations included go some way to redressing the balance: ‘The Watter-Scriever’ by Scotland’s national poet Edwin Morgan and ‘A Little Leaf . . .’ by Francis Jones. Both translators make brilliant use of their own vernaculars (Glaswegian and North Yorkshire respectively) to bring Gezelle to life for the non-Dutch-speaking reader.
Table of Contents
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- Half Title Page
- pp. i-ii
- Title Page
- p. iii
- Acknowledgements
- p. viii
- On the New Edition
- p. ix
- Translating a National Monument
- pp. 8-13
- Ten Versions of ‘O Lied’
- pp. 15-38
- In Speculo
- pp. 126-223
- Poems originally in English
- pp. 224-227
- Key to Translators
- p. 228
Additional Information
ISBN
9781910634943
Related ISBN(s)
9781910634936
MARC Record
OCLC
1076637988
Launched on MUSE
2021-01-19
Language
English
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC