Skip to main content
University of California Press

Calligrammes

Poems of Peace and War (1913-1916)
by Guillaume Apollinaire (Author), Anne Hyde Greet (Translator), S. I. Lockerbie (Introduction by)
Paperback
Price: $34.95 / £30.00
Publication Date: Mar 2004
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 525
ISBN: 9780520242128
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Request an Exam or Desk Copy(opens in new window)RightsLink(opens in new window)Read an Excerpt(opens in new window)
Recommend to your Library (PDF)(opens in new window)Rights and Permissions

About the Book

This fully annotated bilingual edition of Calligrammes makes available a key work not only in Apollinaire's own development but also in the evolution of modern French poetry. Apollinaire—Roman by birth, Polish by name (Wilhelm-Apollinaris de Kostrowitski), Parisian by choice—died at thirty-eight in 1918. Nevertheless, he became one of the leading figures in twentieth-century poetry, a transitional figure whose work at once echoes the Symbolists and anticipates the work of the Surrealists.

About the Author

Anne Hyde Greet is Professor Emeritus of French, University of California, Santa Barbara, and translator of Apollinaire's Alcools (California, 1966). S. I. Lockerbie is Emeritus Professor of French, University of Stirling, Scotland.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Ondes Waves
Etendards Banners
Case d'Armons Flutchel
Lueurs des Tirs Flash of Gunfire
Obus Couleur de Lune Moon-Colored Shells
La Tete Etoilee The Starry Head
Commentary
Select Bibliography

Reviews

"Greet's English is an excellent guide to Apollinaire's French. A modern classic long overdue in this form."
— Los Angeles Times
“What we have in these poems, instead of politics, is a subjective and affective chronicle in which the wilder imaginative flights are constantly pinned down by immediate detail. A consistent governing sensibility expands then retracts with impressive suppleness - it's rather like a genie returning to its bottle.”
— The Guardian
"This impressive edition presenting the original French texts facing the English translations deserves high praise on numerous counts. The successful duplication in English of the complex typography of these word-drawings is in itself a feat. . . . The enduring value of this edition will derive from its completeness and the tools it offers the competent but inexpert reader of French for fuller understanding of Apollinaire's rich, but often abstruse vocabulary and imagery."
— CHOICE
"The reader new to Apollinaire will be led into the fascinating labyrinth, the specialist will find it both stimulating and invaluable as a work of reference. . . . This is an authoritative and complete edition and will remain so for a long time to come." 
— Modern Language Review
"Any study, any appreciation, not only of French poetry early in [the 20th] century but of French painting—Picasso, the Cubists, Delaunay—and of Apollinaire's personal vision can begin with this excellent book."
— The Antioch Review