The Kalima Translation Project at the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre (ALC) marked World Poetry Day on 21 March by announcing a major French poetry translation and publishing project entitled French Poetry Encyclopaedia.
The project will focus on 100 books, 44 of which will be in the first phase of what will be the world’s largest effort to translate French literature. The volumes of the French Poetry Encyclopaedia will introduce Arab readers to French poetry more thoroughly and comprehensively than ever before, and will shed light on the development of French poetry from the 15th to the early 21stcentury.
HE Dr Ali bin Tamim, Chairman of ALC and Secretary-General of Sheikh Zayed Book Award, said: “Given its symbolic importance,World Poetry Day is the perfect occasion to announce our major new French poetry initiative, reflective of the Kalima Project’s emphasis on poetry and translation from other literary spheres.
“This is a monumental effort and a pioneering cultural project by Abu Dhabi to enrich Arab libraries and culture with some of the best poetry ever composed in French over seven centuries. This is a wonderful opportunity for Arab intellectuals, readers and lovers of poetry to explore these valuable works in Arabic for the first time, and it makes up for the historical scarcity of French literature available in the Arabic language, particularly in the poetry genre.
“The Kalima Project is working to deliver the French Poetry Encyclopaedia in collaboration with literary translation experts, linguists and specialists in French poetry, to ensure that the volumes will meet the highest literary and linguistic standards set by Abu Dhabi, reflecting its status as a centre of regional culture and a melting pot of the world’s civilisations,” added HE bin Tamim.
Contents of the French Poetry Encyclopaedia will be curated by Paris-based French-Iraqi academic and poet Kadhim Jihad, who will supervise the work of a team of expert French-to-Arabic translators. The poetry selections will not be restricted to French poets but will also include Francophone poets of other nationalities.
French poetry has witnessed major transformations and the emergence of new names, styles and topics in the 20th century, as citizens of Quebec in Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and overseas French territories started writing poetry of their own. The French-speaking citizens of former French colonies in the Arab world and Africa are similarly contributors to this cultural momentum, having adopted French as a literary language.
The Encyclopaedia will start with poetry from the Intermediate Period, written at a time when Latin and French dialects (such as Provençal) were prevelant. This includessuchpoets as François Fillon, Guillaume de Machaut, Eustache Deschamps, Christine de Pizan, Charles d’Orléans and others. The volume will then move to cover French poetry written in the 16thcentury, where the gradual shift to lyrical poetry is discernible, more festive and more infused with diverse sentiments, a considerable shift from the work of the previous century.
In the 17th century, more development and transformation can be felt, in two movements particularly. The first movement advanced Baroque poetry, and called for the ‘ornamentation’ of poetry with stylistic experimentation that enlisted homonyms, extended metaphorical use, and extravagance. The second movement, more classically oriented, aimed to rid the poetry of such ornamentation and extravagance. Jean de La Fontaine is a poet of the same era, and he enjoys special status for transforming his hallucinations into poetry, as many consider. It is worth noting that some of the themes used in La Fontaine’s poetry resemble the Arab folklore of ‘Kalila waDemna’.
New styles also emerged in 17th-century French poetry, such as tragedies, with such poets as Jean Racine and Pierre Corneille recognised as the most prominent poets of the genre, owing to the mixed style of their work that included poetry and theatrical writing. In the 19th century, which the Encyclopaedia’s curator describes as the ‘philosophers’ century’, poetry was written by philosophers as well as poets, Enlightenment philosophers in particular, such as Volaire, Denis Diderot and others.
But it’s not all classical, as the Encyclopaedia contains the biggest collection of contemporary French poets from the 19th and 20th centuries. The 19th century in particular has had a similar effect on French novels as French poetry; an eruption of new topics, styles and poetic devices. In the 20th century, the Dada art movement was born to reflect the apprehension and fear engulfing France and the rest of the continent in the aftermath of the Great War. Later on, ‘New World’ or ‘New Reality’ poets appeared everywhere, as did epic poets and advocates of ballads and long verse. More recently, one of the most important poetic events of the century took place as the surrealist movement emerged and took hold; bold in its attempts to delve deep into human subconscious and the utilisation of delusion, and experimental, free-style, spontaneous writing.
As the surrealist movement receded, other, more form-centric genres of poetry became more popular, such as spoken word, experimental poetry and others. These, however, failed to withstand the incessant inflow of new styles and voices that were more effective or deeper in its exploration of language and the human condition. These experiments have all grown to amass more followings, each becoming a school in its own right.
The most prominent non-French Francophone poets include the Senegalese Léopold Sédar Senghor, Antillean AiméCésaire, Lebanese Georges Schéhadé, Egyptian Georges Henein, Algerians Jean Sénac and Mohammed Dib, Moroccan Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine and Quebecois Gaston Miron.
The echoes of these prominent voices still echo through time, inspiring young poets who are spearheading a renewal of poetry in different styles and genres that future volumes of the Encyclopaedia will include.
