Anon.
Deucalion et Pyrrha;
ou, Le monde repeuplé, poème très court, moitié pour rire, moitié pour pleurer, à l'usage de tout le monde, et entre autres choses, assez véridique: suivi de traductions, imitations et pièces fugitives échappées à ma jeunesse.
Description:
pp. [iv], [60], [2, engraved music], [1], 8vo,
contemporary half calf, Moravian marbled paper infills, loss of surface to spine (?scorched) and slightly defective at head, joints cracked but holding, corners a bit worn, recased, but not recently, a few minor corrections to the text
Publication Details:
A Lanternopolis: Chez A. Parchemin, l'An XXV de mes lunettes, [1800]
Notes: This rare book is the subject of the last chapter in Walter Rex's The Attraction of the Contrary. Essays on the literature of the French Enlightenment, CUP, 1987, in which it is averred that only one copy has come to light, in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsénal: WorldCat adds the Royal Library of Denmark. The history of Lanternopolis is considered, as also the spoof date - a parody of the Revolutionary calendar. The spirits of Rabelais and Villon are invoked, later, Nerval and Baudelaire. The poem 'centers around this overwhelming event [the Terror], and indeed the most interesting way to interpr...moreThis rare book is the subject of the last chapter in Walter Rex's The Attraction of the Contrary. Essays on the literature of the French Enlightenment, CUP, 1987, in which it is averred that only one copy has come to light, in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsénal: WorldCat adds the Royal Library of Denmark. The history of Lanternopolis is considered, as also the spoof date - a parody of the Revolutionary calendar. The spirits of Rabelais and Villon are invoked, later, Nerval and Baudelaire. The poem 'centers around this overwhelming event [the Terror], and indeed the most interesting way to interpret it is to see the poem as reflecting a kind of trauma, a forcible withdrawal from life which translates into sexual impotence, on the most explicit level, and also, on the other, into an inability to deal with moral issues - another kind of impotence. Naturally such a a statement teems with contradictions, short circuits, and jokes that leave everyone in the dark... It embodies nothing less than the dissolution of the Classical way of writing poetry... [it] can be seen as foreshadowing a turning point in the history of literature, that will eventually lead towards the kind of alienation characterising those who used to be called "les petits romantiques."' The corrections to the text are little more than the rectification of typos, but in one instance the substitution of 'goutes' for 'moeurs' is suggestive of authorial intervention (there are no printed errata). The only clue as to authorship comes with the music: 'Paroles et Musique de C[itoy]en L. M...' HIDE
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Price: £2,000
Subject: Literature
Published Date: [1800]
Stock Number: 59252
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