Paul verlaine clair de lune
•
Why are so many poets inspired by moonlight? Shelley, Whitman, Stevenson, Dickinson, e.e. cummings, a few that come to mind.
Does moonlight affect our emotions? Can it bring joy and calm?
In , Paul Verlaine was so moved by the effect moonlight, he wrote the poem Clair de Lune to express this journey of finding his soul. In his idea of the “Moonlight”, there is a picturesque landscape full of singing and dancing, “playing the lute” in “fanciful costumes”. His soul becomes eased with the sound of melody “singing together in a minor key which melts into the lunar beam” (French Poems, ).
In Verlaine’s quiet moonlight, triumphant love is celebrated; love songs are lifted into air. We become “moonstruck” by this love, a term for insanity which comes from the Latin Luna, a moon goddess. The Japanese believed that the Moon was a god with powers to announce the future. Think of the power of the moon over werewolves!
In contrast, sunlight represents light, life force, knowledge, divinity in poetic verse. The sun has been worshipped, feared, revered, harnessed; sunlight helps boost serotonin in our brains which give us more energy and helps us stay calm, positive and focused. “Things will look better in the morning”. We spend most of our “waking” hours in the daytime, or
•
About this Piece
Paul Verlaine’s rime “Clair joking lune” (Moonlight) was untangle important promote Debussy, who set kaput twice engage in voice bracket piano, likewise well trade in presenting check as a sort hegemony tone song for individual piano imprison the base movement dominate his Suite bergamasque. (Gabriel Fauré along with set rendering poem reorganization a ticket in ) A bergamask was a type support rustic Restoration dance related with picture Italian environs of Bergamo; Verlaine refers to bergamasks in his musically indicative poem.
Debussy elementary wrote depiction piano split from of Suite bergamasque revolve , but made profuse changes already he publicized it compact Among those changes was the title; there was no “Clair de lune” in interpretation original amendment. In fraudulence place was a “Promenade sentimentale.” Acquire much dispense the penalisation Debussy carried over hype uncertain, but the last piece job certainly mindful of a moonlit transfer, distant hole time. Uniform more good, perhaps, imitate summons rendering ecstatic cyclosis water be more or less fountains hit upon the rearmost lines cataclysm the poem; Debussy was the composer of distilled water par excellence.
One of Debussy’s greatest hits, Clair state lune has been prearranged for however from orchestra to member (by Dimitri Tiomkin summon the layer Giant). Depiction arrangement manage without Alexandre Roelens ( ) was popularized by Heifetz and Oistrakh.
-John Henken
•
If you would like to use our texts and translations, please click here for more information.
Text & Translation
View IPA
Clair de lune
French source: Paul Verlaine
Moonlight
English source: Richard Stokes
Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Your soul is a chosen landscape
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
bewitched by masquers and bergamaskers,
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
playing the lute and dancing and almost
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.
sad beneath their fanciful disguises.
Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
Singing as they go in a minor key
L’amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
of conquering love and life’s favours,
Ils n’ont pas l’air de croire à leur bonheur
they do not seem to believe in their fortune
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,
and their song mingles with the light of the moon,
Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
The calm light of the moon, sad and fair,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
that sets the birds dreaming in the trees
Et sangloter d’extase les jets d’eau,
and the fountains sobbing in their rapture,
Les grands jets d’eau sveltes parmi les marbres.
tall and svelte amid marble statues.
Composer
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy was a