Albert Giraud

Albert Giraud (June 23 1860 – December 26 1929), was a Belgian poet writing in the French language. He was born Emile Albert Kayenbergh in Leuven, Belgium. He studied law at the University of Louvain. He left university without a degree and took up journalism and poetry. In 1885, Giraud became a member of La Jeune Belgique, a Belgian nationalist literary movement that met at the Café Sésino in Brussels. ["Albert Giraud's Pierrot Lunaire", translated and with an introduction by Gregory C. Richter.] Giraud became chief librarian at the Belgian Ministry of the Interior.

He was a Symbolist poet. His published works include "Pierrot lunaire: Rondels bergamasques" (1884), a poem cycle based on the commedia dell'arte figure of Pierrot, and "La Guirlande des Dieux" (1910). The composer Arnold Schönberg set a German language version (translated by Otto Erich Hartleben) of selections from his "Pierrot Lunaire" to innovative atonal music.

Works

"Pierrot Lunaire: Rondels Bergamasques" (1884)
"Hors du Siècle" (poems written between 1885 and 1897)
"Le concert dans la musée" (1921)

Quotation

:: Coucher de soleil

:Le Soleil s'est ouvert les veines:Sur un lit de nuages roux::Son sang, par la bouche des trous,:S'éjacule en rouges fontaines.

:Les rameaux convulsifs des chênes:Flagellent les horizons fous;:Le Soleil s'est ouvert les veines:Sur un lit de nuages roux:

:Comme, après les hontes romaines,:Un débauché plein de dégoûts:Laissant jusqu'aux sales égouts:Saigner ses artères malsaines,:Le Soleil s'est ouvert les veines!

:::::--- Pierrot Lunaire

References

"Albert Giraud's Pierrot Lunaire", translated and with an introduction by Gregory C. Richter, Truman State University Press, 2001.

Notes