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Stefan ZWEIG

Lettre autographe signée de deux pages à propos du travail de traduction en allemand des oeuvres de Paul Verlaine qu'il dirige

Berlin s.d. ( circa 1904), 16,5x22,5cm, une feuille.

Handwritten, signed two-page letter concerning his German translation of Paul Verlaine's works % Berlin s.d. (circa 1904), 16.5 x 22.5cm, one leaf. £ Signed, handwritten two-page letter addressed to the director of the literary magazine “La Plume”, Karl Boès, and written in Berlin where Stefan Zweig undertook the translation of Paul Verlaine's works into German.

In this letter, the very young Francophile, barely 23 years old, demonstrates his passion for the poet to Verlaine's publisher. He contributes to its discovery in Germany, less than 10 years after his death: "J'ai réussi de trouver un éditeur et aussi l'éditeur le plus moderne d'Allemagne qui veut oser de vendre une traduction des poésies de Paul Verlaine..." “I have succeeded in finding a publisher and, in addition, Germany's most modern publisher who has just been so bold as to sell a translation of Paul Verlaine's poems...”. Thanks to the collective effort of several German writers that he supervises: "... la traduction, que je dirige, sera la meilleure possible, pars'qu'elle n'est l'oeuvre d'un seul ; toutes les grand lyriciens d'Allemagne et leur meilleur aussi, ... ont collaboré pour faire cette œuvre digne du grand poète..." “...the translation, which I am directing, will be the best possible, since it is not the work of one; all of Germany's great lyricists and their best too,...have collaborated to make this work worthy of the great poet...”; an initiative whose commercial success he predicts:"... nous pouvons espérer, que grâce de la notation des traducteurs et du prix si modeste, Verlaine sera peut-être plus acheté en Allemagne, que en France.” “...we can hope, that thanks to the rating of the translators and the very modest price, Verlaine will perhaps be bought more in Germany than in France.”
In order to enrich this collection of poems by Paul Verlaine, Stefan Zweig asks Karl Boès for the loan of 6 pictures published in different issues of “La Plume” as well as a “poésie autographe de Paul Verlaine” “handwritten poem by Paul Verlaine”.
Much more than a simple translation supervised by a young writer, this interest brings about Zweig's first biographical work and undoubtedly the first biography of Verlaine in Germany. Published in Berlin by Schuster und Löffler, the monograph will be entirely composed by Zweig and enriched with his own translations of Verlaine's most emblematic poems as well as unpublished documents, probably those kindly sent by Boès. If, as promised, he returned the poet's precious manuscript, in 1913 Zweig enriched his handwritten collection with one of Verlaine's major poems: les Fêtes galantes.
Superb and premature testimony of the very young Zweig's passion for French literature and his desire to share it with his compatriots at the dawn of the 20th century, whose nationalist violence will bring distress to the great European humanist.

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