The Anchor Anthology of French Poetry

Book excerpt: First published in 1958, this collection introduced an indispensable corpus of western poetry to countless American students, Francophiles, and would-be poets, among them Patti Smith, whose Introduction to this edition testifies to its epochal impact on her own career. The poetic and cultural tradition forged by the symbolist poets featured herein -- Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Apollinaire, and others -- reverberated throughout the avant garde and countercultures of the twentieth century. Surrealism, modernism, abstract impressionism, and the Beat movement all find their roots in the examples of these poets and their theories of art. With translations by Richmond Lattimore, W.S. Merwin, Richard Wilbur, and Louise Varese, this rediscovered gem is sure to inspire a new generation.