Selected Writings of Gerard de Nerval

The translations are smooth and read well. Editor Geoffrey Wagner, though, seems a bit eccentric: although his introduction has much information of value in it, he leaves chunks of cited French (and German) text *untranslated* which to my mind is kind of a perverse thing to do in the introduction *to a translation*.

However, he probably indicates his intentions in his short introduction to the poetry, where he admits that the motivation of the whole book is to push the reader towards Nerval's originals ... he claims, not without some justification, that Nerval's French is pretty easy and that his (Wagner's) English translations of the poems (which he all but disses as lousy ... unfairly, to my mind) should simply push the reader's eyes show more across the saddle to the French originals. Perhaps it's just that I do know a bit of French, but this does match my experience reading.

Still, kind of a weird way to couch a translation. show less