Vendémiaire (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Guillaume Albert Wladimir Alex Kostrowitzky
- First Published: 1912
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: France or French people, Europe or Europeans, Revolutions, Paris, French Revolution, Rome
The Poem
Guillaume Apollinaire’s poem “Vendémiaire” takes as its title the name of the first month of the new calendar adopted in the wake of the French Revolution. This month, corresponding to September 22 to October 21, was named for the grape harvest (la vendange in French, as opposed to la moisson, for harvest in general). Thus themes of wine, drinking, and even drunkenness permeate the poem along with the gathering in of the harvest.
“Vendémiaire,” the last poem in Apollinaire’s collection Alcools (alcohols), parallels the opening...
[The entire page is 1487 words long]
