Georges Voisset (born March 15, 1948 in
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
) is an
Agrégé in
French Literature, former Fellow of the
Ecole Normale Supérieure of Paris and Professor of
Comparative Literature at the
University of the French West Indies and Guyane.
Literary critic
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
and
translator
Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...
, he is the author of more than a dozen books and numerous articles and essays. He has travelled widely and lived in several Asian and African countries as a university lecturer and director of French cultural institutes under the French
Foreign Service (
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
,
Mauritania
Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...
,
Côte d’Ivoire
Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...
).
Career
While serving as a young French lecturer at the
University of Singapore he fell under the charm of the literatures and poetry of the Southeast Asian
Archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.
Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Archi ...
. Since then, his ambition, both personal as well as professional, has been to draw closer together what he calls the
Francophone
French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the l ...
and the Malayophone Archipelagoes (i.e. the countries bound by a common language,
Malay
Malay may refer to:
Languages
* Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore
** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century
** Indonesi ...
/
Indonesian
Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to:
* Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia
** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago
** Indonesian ...
(Indonesia,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
,
Brunei
Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...
, Singapore and the southern province of
Patani in
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
) – this extremely rich crossroad of civilisations and cultures of the ‘
East Indies
The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around t ...
’ which according to him have by far insufficiently attracted the French literary world compared to the ‘
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
’.
These problematics are illustrated in his book ''Les Lèvres du Monde'' (''The Lips of the World'', 2011), which presents diverse thematics and scores of names of writers from this part of the world, starting from the Malay version of the Story of
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
to contemporary Cambodian cinema ; from
Derek Walcott
Sir Derek Alton Walcott (23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017) was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works include the Homeric epic poem ''Omeros'' (1990), which many critics view "as Walcot ...
to
Multatuli via
Henri Fauconnier
Henri Fauconnier (26 February 1879 – 14 April 1973) was a French writer, known mainly for his novel ''Malaisie'', which won the Prix Goncourt in 1930. He was part of the Groupe de Barbezieux.
Family
Fauconnier was born at the Villa Muss ...
and
Pramoedya Ananta Toer; from
Senghor to the Indonesians
Sitor Situmorang and
Ayu Utami
Ayu Utami (born 21 November 1968) is an Indonesian writer who has written novels, short-stories, and articles. '' Saman'' (1998) is widely considered her masterpiece. It was translated into English by Pamela Allen in 2005. By writing about sex ...
or the Singaporean poet
Edwin Thumboo; from
Victor Segalen to
Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys, ( ; born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a British novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she mainly resided in England, where she was sent for her ...
via
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...
; from
Césaire and
Edouard Glissant to the Malaysian poet
Muhammad Haji Salleh
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mono ...
, etc. Exploring an immense intercultural space little known to the Western public, he highlights in thirty over essays the unsuspected wealth of numerous relations between literary “archipelagoes” apparently remote.
Since long familiar with these literatures, he has translated and commented on poetry, both modern and traditional, as can be seen in his Anthology of some sixty modern poets ''La Terre et l’Eau'' (''Land and Water'') and above all ''Sonorités pour adoucir le souci'' (''Rhymes to Soothe Care''). Due to this work, a too often neglected poetical world has entered the prestigious
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
collection of the World Representative Works.
His interest and work on the
pantun have made him one of the few French specialists of this
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
, as illustrated by his ''Histoire du Genre Pantoun'' (''History of the Pantun Genre'', 1998) and several translations and new translations : ''Pantouns malais'' (''Malay Pantun'', 1993), ''Pantouns malais'' (2009), ''Le Chant à quatre mains'' (''The Four-Hand Singing — Pantun and other Love Poems'', 2011). His latest book is a compilation of ''Jungle Tales'' (''Contes Sauvages – Les très curieuses histoires de Kancil le petit chevrotain'', 2012), an adaptation of a few of the very famous folkloric animal tales on
Kancil
Chevrotains, or mouse-deer, are small even-toed ungulates that make up the family Tragulidae, the only extant members of the infraorder Tragulina. The 10 extant species are placed in three genera, but several species also are known only ...
or
Pelanduk the Mouse-deer published in Singapore at the turn of the 20th Century—a confirmation of Georges Voisset’s long lasting commitment for Malay traditional literatures, as he re-orientates our curiosity towards a more general and younger public.
A History of the Pantun genre
The Malay pantun is a poetical expression of
orality which can be formalized as a
quatrain
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greec ...
of four lines which cross rhyme (ABAB), where the first two lines introduce a general analogical atmosphere while the last two convey the meaning of the poem, which can be moral, sentimental, etc.
Georges Voisset explains and illustrates in his book the filiation from the Malay pantun to the ''pantoum'' "à la française" and its internationalization, after this form was revealed to
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
by a young
romantic
Romantic may refer to:
Genres and eras
* The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries
** Romantic music, of that era
** Romantic poetry, of that era
** Romanticism in science, of that e ...
orientalist,
Ernest Fouinet. Hugo was the first, in France, to quote a linked pantun in a famous note of his collection ''The Orientals'' (1829). It is first of all due to the success of this work, and to a misprint (''pantoum'' for pantoun), that the pantoum owes its individualization in French poetics. But it is
Leconte de Lisle
Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle (; 22 October 1818 – 17 July 1894) was a French poet of the Parnassian movement. He is traditionally known by his surname only, Leconte de Lisle''.
Biography
Leconte de Lisle was born on the French overseas ...
who first wrote a really valuable series of linked pantun; after him, the international literary movement of the
Parnasse would spread to the entire francophone area. The names of
Théophile Gautier,
Théodore de Banville, Charles Asselineau and his friend
Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited fro ...
,
Verlaine,
Jules Laforgue
Jules Laforgue (; 16 August 1860 – 20 August 1887) was a Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbo ...
, René Ghil, should be mentioned, but also the Vietnamese poet Nguyen Van Xiem, etc. Georges Voisset then quotes, beyond
Francophonie
Francophonie is the quality of speaking French. The term designates the ensemble of people, organisations and governments that share the use of French on a daily basis and as administrative language, teaching language or chosen language. The ...
, numerous other poets who practiced the linked pantun, many from other sources than Hugo’s, such as
Chamisso the Franco-German poet, the Russian
Karolina Pavlova
Karolina Karlovna Pavlova (russian: link=no, Кароли́на Ка́рловна Па́влова) (22 July 1807 – 14 December 1893) was a 19th-century Russian poet and novelist.Terras, 1985, p. 128.
Biography
Karolina Karlovna Pavlova (née J ...
, the Czech and
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
winner
Jaroslav Seifert, etc.
Georges Voisset ends his book by questioning the total lack of interest shown for the genuine Malay form in the French-speaking world, with the exception of a handful of poets, whereas the Japanese
haiku
is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or se ...
has received an overwhelming success. A regrettable state of affairs, according to Georges Voisset who has endeavoured to reveal in his translations and works the infinite beauty of the pantun genre.
Works
Essays
*''Histoire du genre pantoun. Malayophonie, Francophonie, Universalie'', L’Harmattan, 1997.
*''L’imaginaire de l’archipel'', Karthala, 2003 (Collections Lettres du Sud).
*''Les Lèvres du monde. Littératures comparées, de la Caraïbe à l’Archipel malais'', Les Perséides, 2008 (Collection Le monde atlantique).
*''Guide de littérature mauritanienne : une anthologie méthodique'', collaboration work, L'Harmattan, 1992.
Other essays
*''Pantoun et Pantoum'', Cahiers du Centre International d'Etudes Poétiques, 218, Bruxelles, 1998 (On the "French Pantoum" in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
).
*''Le pantoun malais aujourd'hui'', in Poésie 96, n° 64, décembre 1996 (Contemporary Pantun from Malaysian Poets).
Translations
*''Pantouns malais'', La Différence, 1993 (Collection Orphée).
*''Sonorités pour adoucir le souci : poésie traditionnelle de l'Archipel malais'',
Gallimard / UNESCO, 1996 (Collection Connaissance de l'Orient, Oeuvres représentatives).
*''Le Livre des charmes — Incantations malaises du temps passé'', La Différence, 1997 (Collection Orphée).
*''La Terre et l’Eau — Un siècle de poésie de l’Archipel malais (1913-1996). Anthologie bilingue : Indonésie, Malaisie, Singapour, Brunei'', You Feng Éditeur, 1999.
*''Pantouns malais'', Les Perséides, 2008 (Collection ArtBref).
*''Le Chant à quatre mains — Pantouns et autres poèmes d’amour'', Collection du Banian, 2010.
*''Contes Sauvages — Les très curieuses histoires de Kancil le petit chevrotain'', Les Perséides, 2012.
*''Semangat — La Force Vive de la poésie malaise. Charmes traditionnels et poèmes contemporains'' », in Poésie 97, n° 66, Feb. 1997 (on mantras).
*''Poètes malais d'aujourd'hui, présentés et traduits du malais'', Poésie 97, n° 70, Dec. 1997 (contemporary Malay poets).
*''La poésie indonésienne'', Europe n° 846, Oct. 1999. (Indonesian Contemporary Poets)
*''Chairil Anwar : poèmes'', in Orpheus, Revue internationale de poésie n° 2.
External links
''Le "vrai" pantun et ses lecteurs en France'', Revue de Littérature Comparée 268, 1994 (''The 'genuine' pantun and its French amateurs'')Full text of ''L'imaginaire de l'archipel'' on Google Books (in French)Full text of lecture given by Georges Voisset on the topic of pantun translation (in English)Full article by Georges Voisset on the differences between pantun and pantoum on ''Lettres de Malaisie''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voisset, Georges
1948 births
Living people
French literary critics
French translators
Writers from Lyon
École Normale Supérieure alumni