Sonnets of Love and Death

A true Renaissance man, Basque-born Jean de Sponde (1557-1595) was a jurist, alchemist and poet, among other vocations and avocations. Prolific poet, translator and Bennington College faculty member David R. Slavitt has taken Sponde's old French Sonnets of Love & Death and put them in modern English, while attempting to preserve Ssponde's rhyme scheme and immediacy. The results are mixed, but this bilingual edition allows easy comparisons. (July)