Emily Dickinson is enjoying Paris this autumn. At least figuratively speaking, the "Recluse" is alive and well and living in Paris. French students are reading her work in preparation for the competitive teacher's examination, the agrégation, and her complete poems have just been translated as
Poésies complètes by Françoise Delphy (published by Flammarion, November 12, 2009). Delphy follows several other translators in popularizing Dickinson to the French: there is the magisterial work of Claire Malroux, based on the Johnson edition, in
Car l'adieu, c'est la nuit (Gallimard/NRF, 2007), following her earlier translations (Belin, 1989 and Corti, 1998). Even earlier, there was Guy Jean Forgue's translation,
Poèmes, published by Aubier-Flammarion (1970).
Links
Patrick Kéchichian, "Emily Dickinson ou la trace de l'ange,"
La Croix (
November 19, 2009).
Bibliography for the English Agrégation and Capes from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (
www.bnf.fr) and from the SAES site, as prepared by Isabelle Alfandary and Antoine Cazé (
web.univ-pau.fr/saes).