About The Book

One of the most important playwrights and novelists of the twentieth century, Samuel Beckett was also an accomplished poet and translator. Collected Poems in English and French is a complete collection of all the poetry by the Nobel Prize-winning writer, including his poetry written originally in English and French, as well as his translations of major French poets such as Paul Eluard, Arthur Rimbaud, and Guillaume Appollinaire.

The English poems include Whoroscope, his first published verse, as well as the thirteen poems first published in 1935 as Echo’s Bones and Other Preipitates. In addition, there are the dozen poems in French that Beckett wrote in 1938 and 1939, his first creative work in that language; three of these are accompanied by Beckett’s own English translations. Among the translations are those of eight Eluard poems, The Drunken Boat by Rimbaud, Zone by Apollinaire, and nine maxims by Chamfort.

From his original work to his translations, Beckett’s genius and masterful use of language are on display throughout this collection.

Praise

“Beckett’s voice in verse has the same haunting cadence, the same ‘dour questing,” the same ‘dread nay” we recognize from his drama in prose. Like some ‘death-mask of unrivalled beauty,” Beckett’s poetry offers us a very unexpected detour into the formalities of lyrical structure.” –The New Republic

“How much this book has to offer! So much in such a small space, and what egregious wit and vivid imagination sparkle as Irish singing and French celebration merge!” –The Kansas City Star

‘reading Beckett for the first time is an experience like no other in modern literature.” –Paul Auster