Francis Vielé-Griffin

Francis Vielé-Griffin
Francis Vielé-Griffin
Born	26 May 1864; Norfolk, Virginia, US
Died	12 November 1937 (aged 73); Bergerac
Occupation	Poet
Genre	Symbolist

Francis Vielé-Griffin (pseudonym of Egbert Ludovicus Viélé, 26 May 1864 – 12 November 1937), was a French symbolist poet. He was born at Norfolk, Virginia, USA, the son of General Egbert Ludovicus Viele, and moved to France with his mother (the former Teresa Griffin) in 1872.^[1]

Vielé-Griffin was educated in France and divided his time between Paris and Touraine. He was a writer of vers libre and founded the highly influential journal Entretiens politiques et littéraires (1890–92).^[2] He wrote symbolist and vers-libre poetry. His first collection, Cueille d'avril, appeared in 1885. He practiced a relaxed prosody, which did not take into account the obligatory alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes, the prohibition to rhyme a plural with a singular, replaces the rhyme with an assonance, if not neglected here and there the rhyme or assonancer:

Ne croyez pas

Pour ce qu'avril rit rose

Dans les vergers

Ou palit de l'exces voluptueux des fleurs

Que toutes choses

Sont selon nos gais coeurs

Et qu'il n'est plus une soif a etancher.

Works

His work includes:^[2]

Cueille d'avril (1885) (Cull of April, in English translation by Sunny Lou Publishing: ISBN 978-1-95539-218-1, 2021)
Les Cygnes (1887; new series, 1892) (Swans, in English translation by Sunny Lou Publishing: ISBN 978-1-95539-230-3, 2022)
Ancaeus (1885–87), a dramatic poem
Joies (1889) (Joys, in English translation by Sunny Lou Publishing: ISBN 978-1-95539-221-1, 2022)
Fleurs du Chemin et Chansons de la Route (1893) ("Flowers of the Path" and "Songs of the Journey" included in The Ride of Yeldis & Other Poems, in English translation by Sunny Lou Publishing: ISBN 978-1-95539-239-6, 2023)
La Chevauchée d'Yeldis (1893) (The Ride of Yeldis & Other Poems, in English translation by Sunny Lou Publishing: ISBN 978-1-95539-239-6, 2023)
Swanhilde, a dramatic poem (1894)
Laus Veneris (1895), a volume of translations from Swinburne
Poèmes et Poésies (1895), a collection containing much of his earlier work
Phocas le jardinier (1898)
La Légende ailee de Wieland le Forgeron (1899), a dramatic poem.
L'Amour sacré (1903), poems
Plus loin (1906)
Voix d'Ionie (1914)
La Rose au flat (1922)
Le Livre des reines (1929)

Quotes

From “Euphonies” in Cull of April:^[3]

I ramble on return from vain lassitudes,

Have we not dreamt of other beatitudes?

From "Dea" in Cull of April:^[3]

The rhythm of her voice is my only metric,

And her alternating pace my nuanced rhyme,

My idea is what I read in her thoughts,

Of course, and Iʼve never dreamt of other America

Than to kiss the fiery gold of her lowered head.

References

^ World Authors 1900–1950, edited by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens, volume 4 (of 4), H. W. Wilson Company, 1996, p. 2755
^ ^a ^b Chisholm 1911, p. 50.
^ ^a ^b Vielé-Griffin, Francis (2021). Cull of April. Translated by Richard Robinson. Sunny Lou Publishing.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Viélé-Griffin, Francis". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 50.\