ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates in detail the translation activity of modern French-language poets. After a discussion of the French book market, and poetry in translation series (Actes Sud, Éditions Difference, Gallimard, Mercure de France, and Seghers) the chapter analyses the translation statistics of 20th- and 21st-century French poet-translators: which poets translated, how many of them translated and how much, and which authors and source languages they translated. The translations are studied by language, date, and genre. Differences and similarities are pointed out with regard to English- and Italian-language poets. Prolific poets discussed here include, among many others, Jacques Ancet, Jacques Audiberti, Yves Bonnefoy, Alain Bosquet, Paul Claudel, Jacques Darras, Henri Deluy, Bernard Delvaille, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Lorand Gaspar, André Gide, Roger Giroux, Armel Guerne, Eugène Guillevic, Philippe Jaccottet, Pierre Jean Jouve, Abdellatif Laâbi, Jacques Lacarrière, Alain Lance, Valery Larbaud, Guy Lévis Mano, Bernard Noël, Claude Pélieu, Georges Perros, Claude Roy, Jean-Claude Schneider, Silvia Baron Supervielle, Henri Thomas, Boris Vian, and Antoine Vitez.
