Works
In 1900 he would write his first pornographic novel, Mirely, ou le petit trou pas cher, which was eventually lost. Apollinaire's first collection of poetry was L'enchanteur pourrissant (1909), but Alcools (1913) established his reputation. The poems, influenced in part by the Symbolists, juxtapose the old and the new, combining traditional poetic forms with modern imagery. In 1913, Apollinaire published the essay Les Peintres cubistes on the cubist painters, a movement which he helped to define. He also coined the term orphism to describe a tendency towards absolute abstraction in the paintings of Robert Delaunay and others.
In 1907, Apollinaire wrote the well-known erotic novel, The Eleven Thousand Rods (Les Onze Mille Verges). Officially banned in France until 1970, various printings of it circulated widely for many years. Apollinaire never publicly acknowledged authorship of the novel. Another erotic novel attributed to him was The Exploits of a Young Don Juan (Les exploits d'un jeune Don Juan), in which the 15-year-old hero fathers three children with various members of his entourage, including his aunt. The book was made into a movie in 1987.
Shortly after his death, Mercure de France published Calligrammes, a collection of his concrete poetry (poetry in which typography and layout adds to the overall effect), and more orthodox, though still modernist poems informed by Apollinaire's experiences in the First World War and in which he often used the technique of automatic writing.
In his youth Apollinaire lived for a short while in Belgium, mastering the Walloon dialect sufficiently to write poetry through that medium, some of which has survived.
Poetry:
- Le bestiaire ou le cortège d’Orphée, 1911
- Alcools, 1913
- Vitam impendere amori', 1917
- Calligrammes, poèmes de la paix et de la guerre 1913-1916, 1918 (published shortly after Apollinaire's death)
- Il y a..., 1925
- Julie ou la rose, 1927
- Ombre de mon amour, poems addressed to Louise de Coligny-Châtillon, 1947
- Poèmes secrets à Madeleine, pirated edition, 1949
- Le Guetteur mélancolique, previously unpublished works, 1952
- Poèmes à Lou, 1955
- Soldes, previously unpublished works, 1985
- Et moi aussi je suis peintre, album of drawings for Calligrammes, from a private collection, published 2006
Prose:
- Mirely ou le Petit Trou pas cher, 1900
- "Que faire?",
- Les Onze Mille Verges ou les amours d'un hospodar, 1907
- L'enchanteur pourrissant, 1909
- L'Hérèsiarque et Cie (short story collection), 1910
- Les exploits d’un jeune Don Juan, 1911
- La Rome des Borgia, 1914
- La Fin de Babylone - L'Histoire romanesque 1/3, 1914
- Les Trois Don Juan - L'Histoire romanesque 2/3, 1915
- Le poète assassiné, 1916
- La femme assise, 1920
- Les Épingles (short story collection), 1928
Plays:
- Les Mamelles de Tirésias, play, 1917
- La Bréhatine, screenplay (collaboration with André Billy), 1917
- Couleurs du temps, 1918
- Casanova, published 1952
Articles:
- Le Théâtre Italien, illustrated encyclopedia, 1910
- Pages d'histoire, chronique des grands siècles de France, chronicles, 1912
- Méditations esthétiques. Les peintres cubistes, 1913
- La Peinture moderne, 1913
- L'Antitradition futuriste, manifeste synthèse, 1913
- Case d'Armons, 1915
- L'esprit nouveau et les poètes, 1918
- Le Flâneur des Deux Rives, chronicles, 1918
Read more about this topic: Guillaume Apollinaire
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—D.W. (David Wark)