Volume 31, Number 4 · March 15, 1984
Death in the Family
By Robert Craft
A Tomb for Anatole
by Stéphane Mallarmé, translated with an introduction by Paul Auster
North Point Press, 202 pp., $13.50 (paper)
Has too much importance been given to the tomb-in-words that Mallarmé intended to erect for his son, Anatole, dead at eight, and too little to the poetry in which the father actually did immortalize his child? Mr. Auster tells us that the 202 fragments, recently republished with his translations,[1] are not poems but 'notes for a possible work: a long poem,' and, indeed, two of them are entitled 'Notes,' and others contain reminders such as 'idea there,' 'general effect,' and 'etc.,' as well as blank spaces for words in blocked-out lines. Yet fragments of these fragments are poetry.
Review, 1045 words
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