Léon-Paul Fargue Vulturnus

Nearly 100 years later, a landmark post-Symbolist poem receives its first English translation When published in 1928, Vulturnus represented a new direction in Léon-Paul Fargue's writing: a shift from the lyrical post-Symbolist melancholy of his early poetry to something more grandiose, dynamic and cosmic. This long prose poem weaves together philosophical dialogue, metaphysical meditation and mournful reminiscence delivered in a language that spirals into scientific terminology and Rabelaisian neologism. Jolted into a nightmare aboard a long-distance train journey, the author finds himself on a voyage that takes him from his hometown to other existences, accompanied by the fanfare of the planets and two companions?Pierre Pellegrin and Joseph Ausudre?who guide him to a terrestrial paradise in quest of a moment of eternity. This first English translation finally introduces an essential yet underrecognized 20th-century voice and includes an essay on the text by René Daumal, who declares that «Vulturnus suffocates me with its obviousness ... I see behind Fargue the great frame of Doctor Faustroll.»