Philippe Jaccottet Books

An intense confrontation unfolds between a young man and his former mentor, a once-inspiring philosopher now living in despair. After years abroad, the disciple returns only to find his master has abandoned his family and ideals, leading to a night of painful revelations and critiques of their shared beliefs. Written during a period of creative struggle, this novel explores the dualities of human nature, aiming to reconcile despair with the pursuit of beauty and truth. Translated by Tess Lewis, it showcases Jaccottet's literary prowess.

A meditation on the work of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi and its power to evoke a complexity of emotions and astonishment.In The Pilgrim’s Bowl , Swiss poet Philippe Jaccottet examines Giorgio Morandi’s ascetic still lifes, contrasting his artistic approach to the life philosophies of two authors whom he cherished, Pascal and Leopardi, and reflecting on the few known autobiographical details we know about Morandi. In this small and erudite tome, Jaccottet draws us into the very heart of the artist’s calm and strangely haunting oeuvre. In his literary criticism, Jaccottet is known for deeply engaging with the work of his fellow poets and tenaciously seeking the essence of their poetics. In this, his only book-length essay devoted to an artist, his critical prose likewise blends empathy, subtle discernment, and a determination to pinpoint, or at least glimpse, the elusive underlying qualities of Morandi's deceptively simple, dull-toned yet mysteriously luminous paintings. The Pilgrim’s Bowl is a remarkably elucidating study based on a profound admiration for and a dialogue with Morandi’s oeuvre.

English, French (translation)Original French

The second volume of notes and reflections from one of Switzerland's most prominent and prolific men of letters. One of Europe's finest contemporary poets, Jaccottet is a writer of exacting attention. Through keen observations of the natural world, art, literature, and music, and reflections on the human condition, Jaccottet opens his readers' eyes to the transcendent in everyday life. The Second Seedtime is a collection of "things seen, things read, and things dreamed." The volume continues the project Jaccottet began three decades earlier in his first volume of notebooks, Seedtime. Here, again, he gathers flashes of beauty dispersed around him like seeds that may blossom into poems or moments of inspiration. He returns, insistently, to such literary touchstones as Dante, Montaigne, Góngora, Goethe, Kierkegaard, Hölderlin, Michaux, Hopkins, Brontë, and Dickinson, as well as musical greats including Bach, Monteverdi, Purcell, and Schubert. The Second Seedtime is the vivid chronicle of one man's passionate engagement with the life of the mind, the spirit, and the natural world.

Philippe Jaccottet's newest work follows in some ways the approach of Seedtime, his recent two-volume collection of notebooks. Similarly comprising on-the-spot jottings, philosophical reflections, literary commentary, dream narratives and sundry "notes," this book nonetheless differs from the preceding volumes in that the Swiss poet includes more personal material than ever before. Drawing on unpublished notebooks from the years 1952-2005, Jacottet offers here passages about his family, the death of his father-in-law and of his mother, his encounters with other major poets--such as René Char, Francis Ponge, Jean Tardieu, and his friends Yves Bonnefoy and André du Bouchet--and his trips abroad, as well as, characteristically, his walks in the countryside around the village of Grignan, in the south of France, where he has lived since 1953. For a poet who has been notoriously discreet about his life, this book offers unexpected glimpses of the private man. Above all, the entries in this notebook show how one of the greatest European poets grapples with the discouraging elements of existence, counterbalancing them by recording fleeting perceptions in which "something else," almost like a threshold, seems present.

'A la lumiere d'hiver' is a central work in the writing of the Swiss French poet Philippe Jaccottet (1925-2021). Tim Dooley's translation, 'In Winter Light', is the product of a long relationship with the original, which he first read in 1977. His English version mirrors the tentative, scrupulous exploration of being he finds in Jaccottet's French.

The first volume of notes and reflections from one of Switzerland's most prominent and prolific men of letters. Seedtime--Jaccottet's notebooks--is an especially good introduction to this leading francophone Swiss author, containing the poet's observations of the natural world and his reflections on literature, art, music, and the human condition. In these explorations, he returns again and again to the fundamental, focusing his prodigious talents on describing the exact shade of light on a meadow, the sound of running water, the color of cherry and almond blossoms, or the cry of a bird in the stillness before dawn. In this translation by Tess Lewis, English readers will finally be able to join this poet as we follow in his footsteps of fifty years ago and find the still-viable seeds of his delicate and tenacious verse.

Zum 95. Geburtstag erscheint Philippe Jaccottets bedeutendes Alterswerk erstmals auf Deutsch. Seine späten Gedichte thematisieren das Alter und die Endlichkeit, während sie gleichzeitig die lebendige Welt feiern. Jaccottet reflektiert über Unsicherheit und das Dazwischen als seine einzige Heimat.

Ostatnia księga Madrygałów oraz inne wiersze i prozy to długo oczekiwany tom wierszy i próz zmarłego w 2021 roku szwajcarskiego Księcia Poetów w wyborze i przekładzie Jana Marii Kłoczowskiego. Jaccottet, poeta piszący w języku francuskim, a także wybitny tłumacz poezji, zaprasza nas w podróż po królestwie cieni śladami Orfeusza i Odyseusza. Celebrujemy wraz z Autorem pory roku, smakujemy subtelne nawiązania do jego przekładów (Homer, Ungaretti, Dante), wsłuchujemy się w echa muzyki Claudia Monteverdiego. Zamieszczone w niniejszym tomie wiersze i prozy są jak „błękitna materia nieba”, którą „miłosierna Penelopa rozczesuje o świcie” – „cierpliwa i wierna, chce nas osłonić przed czarnym łucznikiem i strzałami zimna”.