japonisme: reading recommendations desired

20 January 2007

reading recommendations desired

some say that stephane mallarme's poetry was influenced by japonisme -- not in the way mentioned earlier, the simplified form, without rhyme, as seen in haiku.

it's obvious that he was into these new forms from the east; he made these fans, this notebook, with illustrations borrowed directly from hiroshige.

what has been said is that mallarme took the same things that the visual artists took: a certain use of spaces, a certain focus on nature, a certain "color."

i find that fascinating but you couldn't learn it from me because i have never read mallarme. nor have i read zola, or proust, or much of thomas mann, henry james, andre gide, d h lawrence, or anyone else who could really give me a picture of what it was like living exactly when all this was going on.

so i would greatly appreciate recommendations. if it's a translation, whose version is the best? who should i read? where should i start? thanking you in advance.

(Stéphane Mallarmé-fan for Misia Natanson; Stéphane Mallarmé and François Coppée- inscriptions and drawings in Méry Laurent's album, ca. 1891; Signature fan, ca. 1892; Hiroshige.)

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5 Comments:

Blogger Diane Dehler said...

Fascinating. I have always been drawn to the symbolist poets.

02 February, 2007 09:44  
Blogger lotusgreen said...

hmmm--who do you recommend? i have read and loved some rimbaud. is he one?

02 February, 2007 14:07  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My blog is dedicated to recommending books that I have enjoyed reading.

http://readingrecommendationsbymacky.blogspot.com/

14 April, 2007 12:35  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Mallarmé's Divagations, translated by Barbara Johnson

11 September, 2008 09:24  
Blogger lotusgreen said...

thank you so much. i'll check it out.

11 September, 2008 11:58  

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