During his lifetime, Stéphane Mallarmé (1842 - 1898) was recognized as one of the greatest living French poets. He wrote extensively on themes of reality and his desire to turn away from it, marrying form and content in revolutionary ways that departed drastically from the more tightly controlled French tradition. Despite his status as one of the first modernists, much of Mallarmé's radicalism has been lost in translation. Finally, in this new collection by Blake Bronson-Bartlett and Robert Fernandez, the magic and mastery of form and diction, so striking in Mallarmé's French verse, comes to life in English. Drawing from Poésies (1899), Un coup de dés (A Cast of Dice), and the "Livre" (the "Book"-the overarching conceptual work left unfinished at the death of the poet), this collection captures Mallarmé's true linguistic brilliance, bringing the poems into our current history while retaining the music, playfulness, and power of the originals.

Stéphane Mallarmé
translated by Blake Bronson-Bartlett and Robert Fernandez

Translators' Note
POÉSIES [Edition Deman, 1899]
Salut
Hex
Apparition
Hopeless Plea
This Worked-Over Clown
Windows
Flowers
Renewal
Anguish
"Tired of my indolence..."
The Bell Ringer
Summertime Sadness
The Azure
Sea Breeze
Sigh
Alms
Their Desirable Gift
Hérodiade [scene]
The Afternoon of a Faun [Eclogue]
"Lock of hair..."
Saint
Funeral Toast
Prose [for des Esseintes]
Fan [for Mme. Mallarmé]
Other Fan [of Mlle. Mallarmé]
Scrap, as for an Album
Remembrance of Belgian Friends
Street Song I (The Shoemaker)
Street Song II (Herb Vendor)
Ticket
Tune I ["So alones (choose)"]
Tune II ["My drives"]
Various Sonnets
"When the shade..."
"Vivacious, pretty hymen"
"Suicide. Good death ..."
"Her pure nails..."
Tomb of Edgar Poe
Tomb of Charles Baudelaire
Tomb (Anniversary-January 1897)
Homage [Wagner]
Homage [Puvis de Chavannes]
"To you colonist..."
I
II
III
"What balm-of-time silk..."
"Straight to your story..."
"Red Fire Lozenge..."
"Leaves Seal the Name..."
A Cast of Dice
From the "Livre"
Acknowledgments