Pierre Leyris (16 July 1907 – 4 January 2001) was a French translator. The writers who benefited from his talent were, among others,

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

in the complete edition of the , Melville,

Jean Rhys Jean Rhys, ( ; born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her educa ...

Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the great ...

Stevenson Stevenson is an English language patronymic surname meaning "son of Steven". Its first historical record is from pre-10th-century England. Another origin of the name is as a toponymic surname related to the place Stevenstone in Devon, England. The ...

Hawthorne Hawthorne often refers to the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne may also refer to: Places Australia *Hawthorne, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane Canada * Hawthorne Village, Ontario, a suburb of Milton, Ontario United States * Hawt ...

and

De Quincey De Quincy, De Quincey, DeQuincy, or DeQuincey is a name. It can occur as both a masculine given name and as a surname. Geographically, it can be found in the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and New Zealand. Notable people with this name ...

. He was also an incomparable translator of English-speaking poets, from Milton to

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

. His four-volume translation of the works of

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Roma ...

, published by Aubier & Flammarion, remains the most complete in French and earned him the 1974

Prix Valery Larbaud The Prix Valery Larbaud is a French literary prize created in 1967, ten years after writer Valery Larbaud's death, by ''L'Association Internationale des Amis de Valery Larbaud'', an organization dedicated to the promotion of his works. The prize is ...

Biography

After studying at

lycée Janson-de-Sailly Lycée Janson-de-Sailly is a ''lycée'' located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. The ''lycéens'' of Janson are called ''les jansoniens'' and they usually refer to their high school as Janson, or JdS. It is the biggest academic inst ...

, he appeared in the avant-garde literary circles. In high school he met Pierre Klossowski, who allowed him to meet his brother, the painter

Balthus Balthasar Klossowski de Rola (February 29, 1908 – February 18, 2001), known as Balthus, was a Polish-French modern artist. He is known for his erotically charged images of pubescent girls, but also for the refined, dreamlike quality of his ima ...

, and the poet

Pierre Jean Jouve Pierre Jean Jouve (; 11 October 1887 – 8 January 1976) was a French writer, novelist and poet.Michael Sheringham, 'Jouve, Pierre-Jean', ''Oxford Companion to French Literature''Onlineat answers.com He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Lite ...

. By the 1930s, he began his translations on behalf of many publishers. From 1954 to 1961, he edited with Henri Evans a bilingual edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works at Club français du livre.The translations have benefited from the collaboration of many writers, some of the most important of their time::

André du Bouchet André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese language, Portuguese form of the name Andrew and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French language, French-spe ...

Jean Grosjean Jean Grosjean (born in Paris on 21 December 1912, died at Versailles on 10 April 2006) was a French poet, writer and translator. Overview After a childhood in the provinces, he became an engineering fitter. He entered the seminary of Saint Sulpi ...

Jules Supervielle Jules Supervielle (16 January 1884 – 17 May 1960) was a Franco-Uruguayan poet and writer born in Montevideo. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times. He opposed the surrealism movement in poetry and rejected automatic wr ...

Michel Butor Michel Butor (; 14 September 1926 – 24 August 2016) was a French poet, novelist, teacher, essayist, art critic and translator. Life and work Michel Marie François Butor was born in Mons-en-Barœul, a suburb of Lille, the third of seven chil ...

Yves Bonnefoy Yves Jean Bonnefoy (24 June 1923, Tours – 1 July 2016, Paris) was a French poet and art historian. He also published a number of translations, most notably the plays of William Shakespeare which are considered among the best in French. He was a ...

Henri Thomas Henri Thomas (7 December 1912 – 3 November 1993) was a French writer and poet. Life Henri Thomas was born at Anglemont, Vosges, and grew up in the Alsace/Lorraine region of France. He moved to Paris to attend the prestigious Henri IV high sch ...

Jean-Louis Curtis Jean-Louis Curtis (22 May 1917 – 11 November 1995), pseudonym of Albert Laffitte, was a French novelist best known for his second novel ''The Forests of the Night'' (French: ''Les Forêts de la nuit''), which won France's highest literary award ...

, Armand Robin. Some of these translations have been taken up by the collection Garnier/Flammarion Long a collection director at the

Mercure de France The () was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group. The gazette was publis ...

, he published ''Esquisse d'une anthologie de la poésie américaine du XIXe'' at Gallimard in 1995. A translator of more than 100 works, he received the National Grand Prix of Translation in 1985, but did not hesitate to "revise" himself after a few years. His

mémoire In French culture, the word ''mémoire'', as in une mémoire ("a memory" – indefinite article), reflects the writer's own experiences and memories. The word has no direct English translation. Up to the 18th century The word appeared in the cours ...

s were posthumously published.

Mémoires

*2002: ''Pour mémoire : ruminations d'un petit clerc à l'usage de ses frères humains et des vers légataires'', Paris, J. Corti, series "Domaine français"

Biography

Mémoires

References

External links