Fetes Galantes & Songs Without Words

Fetes Galantes & Songs Without Words are the 2nd and 4th books of poetry by French poet and author Paul Verlaine. Fetes Galantes (Fetes Galantes in French) was originally published in 1869. A common theme running through these poems is the scenes, characters, and props of French comedy, semi-civilized pastorals, and commedia dell'arte, - figures like Harlequin, Colombine, Pierrot, Leandre, Innamorati, etc., against natural backdrops and Watteau-like dreamy landscapes, with all the appurtenances that one might expect: mandolins, lutes, masques, moonlight, prettily clad women, moss-covered benches… - interfused with the sentiments, melancholy, amorous longings, joys and regrets of the poet.

Songs Without Words (Romances sans paroles in French) was originally published in 1874. The common theme in these poems is the amorous and sentimental love lost, found, and lost again between the poet and his childhood female cousin, or his child wife, or his new-found friend and fellow poet Arthur Rimbaud against a backdrop of the Ardennes, the Belgian countryside, Brussels, and London. It includes perhaps Verlaine’s most famous poem: Il pleure dans mon coeur…