Skip to main content
Book cover for Poems of Guido Gezelle open access

Publication date: 14 November 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781910634943

Number of pages: 252

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Poems of Guido Gezelle

A Bilingual Anthology

Paul Vincent MA, MTA FCIoL, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Department of Dutch, UCL (Editor)

The Bruges-born poet-priest Guido Gezelle (1830–1899) is generally considered one of the masters of 19th-century European lyric poetry. At the end of his life and in the first two decades of the 20th century, Gezelle was hailed by the avant-garde as the founder of modern Flemish poetry. His unique voice was belatedly recognised in the Netherlands and often compared with his English contemporary Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889). In this bilingual anthology, award-winning translator Paul Vincent selects a representative picture of Gezelle’s output, from devotional through narrative, to celebratory and expressionistic. Gezelle’s favourite themes are childhood, the Flemish landscape, friendship, nature, religion and the Flemish vernacular, and his apparently simple poems conceal a sophisticated prosody and a dialogue with spiritual and literary tradition. However, an important barrier to wider international recognition of his lyric genius up to now has been the absence of translations that do justice to the vigour and musicality of Gezelle’s West Flemish idiom. Two of the translations included go some way to redressing the balance: ‘The Watter-Scriever’ by Scotland’s national poet Edwin Morgan and ‘A Little Leaf . . .’ by Francis Jones. Both translators make brilliant use of their own vernaculars (Glaswegian and North Yorkshire respectively) to bring Gezelle to life for the non-Dutch-speaking reader.

DOI: 10.14324/111.9781910634943

Number of pages: 252

Publication date: 14 November 2016

PDF ISBN: 9781910634943

EPUB ISBN: 9781910634950

Hardback ISBN: 9781910634929

Paperback ISBN: 9781910634936

Related titles

Sign up to our newsletter

Don't miss out!
Subscribe to the UCL Press newsletter for the latest open access books,
journal CfPs, news and views from our authors and much more!