This is the central site for a long-term project to research, examine, and respond to the radical collective of writers, theorists, architects, and visual artists who operated in Paris between 1829 and 1835 under the names of the Jeunes France & the Bouzingo, and through them to build a critical understanding of French Romanticist subculture through the historical lens of a continuing politically vigilant Anglophone avant-garde.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Alphinse Brot, 'The Young Girl' (1829)

The Young Girl
–by Alphonse Brot

She is far from the soil where Ivandor rests,
A mob of suitors presses around her;
She weeps, she flees from their drunken disorder,
For her heart is possessed absolutely by death!
     
She sings tunes from her lovely land derived,
Those sung long past by a hero favoured in her choice;
Oh, you can scarcely guess, you dazzled by her voice!…
The devouring regrets that lay waste to her life;

If, near her, Ivandor for moments seemed to thrive,
Too soon for his beloved island he was killed:    
His island weeps upon his war-like ashes still,
His Emma far from him shall not for long survive.

Raise a modest mausoleum for the maid,
Near winding woods, which both the lovers knew so well,
So that at last toward evening tender vows might knell
To come beguile at times her desolated shade!

            –Translated by Olchar E. Lindsann

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