Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire (, born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic. He had Polish ancestry.

Apollinaire is one of the most important poets of the early 20th century. He defended Cubism and helped start Surrealism. He invented the words "Cubism" in 1911, "Orphism" in 1912, and "Surrealism" in 1917.  Apollinaire wrote many early Surrealist works. One of these was the play The Breasts of Tiresias (1917). This play became the basis for Francis Poulenc's 1947 opera Les mamelles de Tirésias.

When Guillaume was young, he was influenced by Symbolist poetry. During his life, he was admired by the young poets who helped influence Surrealism. He was very original, and his work was not based on any theory.

Apollinaire was also a journalist and art critic for Le Matin, L'Intransigeant, L'Esprit nouveau, Mercure de France, and Paris Journal. In 1912, Apollinaire cofounded Les Soirées de Paris, an artistic and literary magazine.

Apollinaire was wounded in World War I. During the pandemic of 1918, Apollinaire died of the Spanish flu.Catherine Moore, Mark Moore, Guillaume Apollinaire official website, Biographie: Chronologie, Western Illinois University

Works

Poetry
 L'enchanteur pourrissant (1909). The Enchanter Rotting
 Le Bestiaire ou Cortège d'Orphée (1911)
 Alcools (1913)
 Vitam impendere amori (1917)
 Calligrammes, poèmes de la paix et de la guerre 1913–1916 (1918) (published shortly after Apollinaire's death)
 Il y a... (1925) Albert Messein
 Julie ou la rose (1927)
 Ombre de mon amour (1947). Poems addressed to Louise de Coligny-Châtillon
 Poèmes secrets à Madeleine (1949). Pirated edition
 Le Guetteur mélancolique (1952). Previously unpublished works
 Poèmes à Lou (1955)
 Soldes (1985). Previously unpublished works
 Et moi aussi je suis peintre (2006). Album of drawings for Calligrammes, from a private collection

Novels
 Mirely ou le Petit Trou pas cher (1900). Mirely, or The Cheap Little Hole (unpublished)
 Que faire ? (1900). What to Do?
 Les Onze Mille Verges ou les Amours d'un hospodar (1907). The Eleven Thousand Rods; The Debauched Hospodar
 Les Exploits d'un jeune Don Juan (1911). The Amorous Exploits of a Young Rakehell, trans. Reaves Tessor (1959)
 La Rome des Borgia (1914). The Rome of the Borgias
 La Fin de Babylone (1914). The Fall of Babylon
 Les Trois Don Juan (1915). The Three Don Juans
 La Femme assise (1920). The Sitting Woman

 Short story collections 
 L'Hérèsiarque et Cie (1910). The Heresiarch and Co., trans. Rémy Inglis Hall (1965)
 Le Poète assassiné (1916). The Poet Assassinated, trans. Matthew Josephson (1923, title story); trans. Ron Padgett (1968, unabridged)
 Les Épingles (1928). The Pins

Plays
 Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1917). The Breasts of Tiresias
 La Bréhatine (1917). Screenplay (collaboration with André Billy)
 Couleurs du temps (1918)
 Casanova (published 1952)

Articles
 Le Théâtre italien, illustrated encyclopedia, 1910
 Preface, Catalogue of 8th Salon annuel du Cercle d'art Les Indépendants, Musée moderne de Bruxelles, 10 June – 3 July 1911.
 La Vie anecdotique, Chroniques dans Le Mercure de France, 1911–1918
 Pages d'histoire, chronique des grands siècles de France, chronicles, 1912
 Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques, 1913
 La Peinture moderne, 1913
 L'Antitradition futuriste, manifeste synthèse, 1913
 Jean Metzinger à la Galerie Weill, Chroniques d'art de Guillaume Apollinaire, L'Intransigeant, Paris Journal, 27 May 1914
 Case d'Armons, 1915
 L'esprit nouveau et les poètes, 1918
 Le Flâneur des Deux Rives, chronicles, 1918

 Translations into English 
 The Poet Assassinated, trans. Matthew Josephson (The Broom Publishing, 1923)
 Selected Writings, trans. Roger Shattuck (New Directions, 1948)
Alcools: Poems 1898–1913, trans. Walter Meredith (Doubleday, 1964)
Alcools, trans. Anne Hyde Greet (University of California Press, 1965)
 Selected Poems, trans. Oliver Bernard (Penguin, 1965; expanded, bilingual edition, Anvil Press, 1986)
 The Heresiarch and Co., trans. Rémy Inglis Hall (1965), published in the UK as The Wandering Jew and Other Stories (1967)
 The Poet Assassinated, trans. Ron Padgett (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968)
 Calligrams, trans. Anne Hyde Greet (Unicorn Press, 1970)
 Apollinaire on Art: Essays and Reviews, 1902-1918, trans. Susan Suleiman (1972)
 Zone, trans. Samuel Beckett (Dolmen Press, 1972)
 Alcools: Poems, trans. Donald Revell (Wesleyan University Press, 1995)
 The Self-Dismembered Man: Selected Later Poems, trans. Donald Revell (Wesleyan University Press, 2004)
 The Little Auto, trans. Beverley Bie Brahic (CB editions, 2012)
"Zone", trans. David Lehman, in Virginia Quarterly Review (2013)
 Zone: Selected Poems, trans. Ron Padgett (New York Review Books, 2015)
 Selected Poems, trans. Martin Sorrell (Oxford University Press, 2015)

In popular culture
French composer Francis Poulenc has set Apollinaire's poems to music in his five-part song cycle Banalités (1940), which in turned inspired Pink Martini's song Sympathique (je ne veux pas travailler) in 1997.
Dutch composer Marjo Tal set some of Apollinaire’s poetry to music.
French composer Denise Roger set Apollinaire’s poetry to music.
Apollinaire is played by Seth Gabel in the 2018 television series Genius, which focuses on the life and work of Pablo Picasso.

Notes

References and sources
References

Sources
 Apollinaire, Marcel Adéma, 1954
 Apollinaire, Poet among the Painters, Francis Steegmuller, 1963, 1971, 1973
 Apollinaire, M. Davies, 1964
 Guillaume Apollinaire, S. Bates, 1967
 Guillaume Apollinaire, P. Adéma, 1968
 The Banquet Years, Roger Shattuck, 1968
 Apollinaire, R. Couffignal, 1975
 Guillaume Apollinaire, L.C. Breuning, 1980
 Reading Apollinaire, T. Mathews, 1987
 Guillaume Apollinaire, J. Grimm, 1993

Other websites


 Reading Apollinaire’s ‘Vendémiaire’,  Cordite Poetry Review 2014
 "Official" site hosted by Western Illinois University
 Becker, Annette: Apollinaire, Guillaume, in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
 Audio recordings of Apollinaire reading his poems "Le Pont Mirabeau", "Marie" and "Le Voyageur"
 English verse translation of Le Pont Mirabeau

 Guillaume Apollinaire (poems in French and English)
 Les onze mille verges an e-book (in French)
 A digital rendition of Apollinaire's best known poem, "Il Pleut"

Category:1880 births
Category:1918 deaths
Category:French novelists
Category:French poets
Category:Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
Category:Deaths from influenza
Category:French art critics
Category:Military people killed in World War I
Category:French military personnel of World War I
Category:Polish nobility
Category:Writers from Rome
Category:19th-century poets
Category:20th-century poets
Category:20th-century writers
Category:19th-century novelists
Category:20th-century novelists