Stephane Mallarme Translations

These are my modern English translations of sonnets by the French poet Stephane Mallarme. The Tomb of Edgar Poe by Stéphane Mallarmé loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Transformed into himself by Death, at last, the Bard unsheathed his Art’s recondite blade to duel with dullards, blind & undismayed, who’d never heard his ardent Voice, aghast! Like dark Medusan demons of the past who’d failed to heed such high, angelic words, men called him bendered, his ideas absurd, discounting all the warlock’s spells he’d cast. The wars of heaven and hell? Earth’s senseless grief? Can sculptors carve from myths a bas-relief to illuminate the sepulcher of Poe? No, let us set in granite, here below, a limit and a block on this disaster: this Blasphemy, to not acknowledge a Master! "Le Cygne" ("The Swan") by Stéphane Mallarmé this untitled poem is also called Mallarmé's "White Sonnet" loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch The virginal, the vivid, the vivacious day: can its brilliance be broken by a wild wing-blow delivered to this glacial lake whose frozen ice-falls impede flight? No. In past reflections on its thoughts today the Swan remembers freedom, but can’t make a song from its surroundings, only take on the winter's ghostly hue of snow. In the Swan's white agony its bared neck lies within a guillotine its sense denies. Slowly being frozen to its inner being, the body ignores the phantom spirit fleeing... Cold contempt for its captor is of no use to the raptor. Le Cygne by Stéphane Mallarmé Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui Va-t-il nous déchirer avec un coup d'aile ivre Ce lac dur oublié que hante sous le givre Le transparent glacier des vols qui n'ont pas fui ! Un cygne d'autrefois se souvient que c'est lui Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre Pour n'avoir pas chanté la région où vivre Quand du stérile hiver a resplendi l'ennui. Tout son col secouera cette blanche agonie Par l'espace infligée à l'oiseau qui le nie, Mais non l'horreur du sol où le plumage est pris. Fantôme qu'à ce lieu son pur éclat assigne, Il s'immobilise au songe froid de mépris Que vêt parmi l'exil inutile le Cygne. Stephane Mallarme was a major French poet and a leading French symbolist poet. Keywords/Tags: Stephane Mallarme, France, French, poet, poets, symbolism, symbolist, symbolic, poetry, Edgar Allan Poe, grave, tomb, sepulcher, memorial, elegy, eulogy, epitaph, sonnet, surreal, surrealism, surrealist, extended metaphor