Here's a massive update/overview of the proposed project to uncover and explore the Bouzingo, an almost entirely forgotten (and I suspect very important and certainly instructive) early French avant-garde group operating in the early 1830s. Very, very little of their work has been translated into English, and it is my hope that by working together, the extended community that mOnocle-Lash touches on can make this whole body of work, and the community from which it sprang and for which it was designed to function, available and comprehensible for the first time in over 150 years.
TRANSLATION BEGINS THIS WEEKEND. While the project itself is undoubtedly ambitious, I think that if gone about in the right way (and with patience) it can be accomplished without requiring a great deal of concentrated time from anybody. I hope you can be a part of it.
I have tried to make this post comprehensive, something that can provide a foundation for updates to come as the project develops over the coming months and years. That said, and granting my propensity for over-elucidation, I'll outline the project below.
If you'd like to be involved in the translation process, the practical info is at the bottom, if you want to go straight for that first. For any other ideas, question, or ways of being a part of it, leave a comment or email me at monoclelash@gmail.com or olindsann@gmail.com.
THE BOUZINGO
The Bouzingo insofar as we understand it so far has been described to most of you already, and I am attaching the passage from my Ecstatic Nerve relating to them, which contains the bulk of I know of them so far. Briefly, the group emerged from the constantly merging, splitting and name-changing that has apparently characterised avant-garde culture since at least the 1820s. It grew essentially out of the Petit-Cenacle and Jeunes France groups, this third name signaling a plunge into a kind of politically motivated group social-experiment: living collectively in voluntary destitution, their house devoid of furniture but the walls filled with Bouzingo murals of both Classical and erotic traditions, writing and spreading seditious drinking-songs at working-class pubs, plotting and carrying out various provocations of the bourgeoisie in the streets, experimenting with opium and hashish, orchestrating orgiastic parties involving dances requiring pistols fired into the ceiling, holding philosophical debates nude in their back yard, hurling fake corpses from their windows into the street, engaging in various occult and alchemical practices, and carefully cultivating an elaborate gothic mythology about themselves, in which they drank wine from their parents' skulls, stocked their otherwise bare rooms with exotic weaponry, and kept human foetuses in jars on their mantelpiece.
At the same time they were producing a very wide array of work in a number of different media, often collaboratively--from gothic horror novels to classical sculpture to politicized plays and operas to translations from French and German to erotic prints to buildings (I've yet to find any examples by the Bouzingo architect Jules Vabre) to history paintings to Byronic poetry to opaque prose poems. What seems to make the Bouzingos work cohere in sometimes unexpected ways (insofar, again, as I can tell via google translate) is that all seem to share a similar and very heterogeneous set of cultural contexts and resources--various forms of Post-Robespierre, pre-Marxist socialism, popular gothic fiction, the dark Romanticism personified first by Byron (to whom the group's main organiser, Borel, was often compared), both literary and graphic erotica and libertinism, an element of genuine alchemical and occult investigation, the adventure novels of Scott and Cooper, French comedy, and satirical and polemic song.
In all of the printed work that I have unearthed and scanned, it is evident that there are numerous conversations being played out in these poems, and that both writing and publishing (as well as not publishing) were being conceived of not only (or even primarily) as outward products for a public, but as gestures within the social context of the group, as well as its relationship to the broader communities that intersected with it and with its own history and future.
It is also quite clear that future (as well as past) avant-garde communities were considered part of this more intimate audience; frankly it's rather uncanny to dig up these texts (more than once) and find an exhortation or reference to the future reader who will have rediscovered one's existence after having been forgotten to history for generations. More uncanny yet when Aloysius Bertrand even relates to me fairly accurately what the historical trail was that I followed to his discovery. There is a whole social poetics of epigraphs to be read in the literary work of this group. (especially when they can be read.)
These inferences, again, are based on my quasi-readings of material as I find it, and on widely scattered and isolated atoms of information. If you want to know in more detail what it is that I'm looking at in cobbling together this reconstruction of their activity, or investigate beyond the links I'll include below, just email me.
A LIST OF BOUZINGO
Up to a few weeks ago I was still discovering new people so this may not be comprehensive. Nearly everyone used pseudonyms, most of them Anglicized and some of them brilliantly funny:
Aloysius Bertrand--writer
Petrus Borel--writer/organizer/translator/painter/architect
Joseph Bouchardy--playwright/engraver
Louis Boulanger--painter, scenographer
Alphonse Brot--playwright (no complete texts so far)
Achille Devéria--painter/lithographer/eroticist
TRANSLATION BEGINS THIS WEEKEND. While the project itself is undoubtedly ambitious, I think that if gone about in the right way (and with patience) it can be accomplished without requiring a great deal of concentrated time from anybody. I hope you can be a part of it.
I have tried to make this post comprehensive, something that can provide a foundation for updates to come as the project develops over the coming months and years. That said, and granting my propensity for over-elucidation, I'll outline the project below.
If you'd like to be involved in the translation process, the practical info is at the bottom, if you want to go straight for that first. For any other ideas, question, or ways of being a part of it, leave a comment or email me at monoclelash@gmail.com or olindsann@gmail.com.
THE BOUZINGO
The Bouzingo insofar as we understand it so far has been described to most of you already, and I am attaching the passage from my Ecstatic Nerve relating to them, which contains the bulk of I know of them so far. Briefly, the group emerged from the constantly merging, splitting and name-changing that has apparently characterised avant-garde culture since at least the 1820s. It grew essentially out of the Petit-Cenacle and Jeunes France groups, this third name signaling a plunge into a kind of politically motivated group social-experiment: living collectively in voluntary destitution, their house devoid of furniture but the walls filled with Bouzingo murals of both Classical and erotic traditions, writing and spreading seditious drinking-songs at working-class pubs, plotting and carrying out various provocations of the bourgeoisie in the streets, experimenting with opium and hashish, orchestrating orgiastic parties involving dances requiring pistols fired into the ceiling, holding philosophical debates nude in their back yard, hurling fake corpses from their windows into the street, engaging in various occult and alchemical practices, and carefully cultivating an elaborate gothic mythology about themselves, in which they drank wine from their parents' skulls, stocked their otherwise bare rooms with exotic weaponry, and kept human foetuses in jars on their mantelpiece.
At the same time they were producing a very wide array of work in a number of different media, often collaboratively--from gothic horror novels to classical sculpture to politicized plays and operas to translations from French and German to erotic prints to buildings (I've yet to find any examples by the Bouzingo architect Jules Vabre) to history paintings to Byronic poetry to opaque prose poems. What seems to make the Bouzingos work cohere in sometimes unexpected ways (insofar, again, as I can tell via google translate) is that all seem to share a similar and very heterogeneous set of cultural contexts and resources--various forms of Post-Robespierre, pre-Marxist socialism, popular gothic fiction, the dark Romanticism personified first by Byron (to whom the group's main organiser, Borel, was often compared), both literary and graphic erotica and libertinism, an element of genuine alchemical and occult investigation, the adventure novels of Scott and Cooper, French comedy, and satirical and polemic song.
In all of the printed work that I have unearthed and scanned, it is evident that there are numerous conversations being played out in these poems, and that both writing and publishing (as well as not publishing) were being conceived of not only (or even primarily) as outward products for a public, but as gestures within the social context of the group, as well as its relationship to the broader communities that intersected with it and with its own history and future.
It is also quite clear that future (as well as past) avant-garde communities were considered part of this more intimate audience; frankly it's rather uncanny to dig up these texts (more than once) and find an exhortation or reference to the future reader who will have rediscovered one's existence after having been forgotten to history for generations. More uncanny yet when Aloysius Bertrand even relates to me fairly accurately what the historical trail was that I followed to his discovery. There is a whole social poetics of epigraphs to be read in the literary work of this group. (especially when they can be read.)
These inferences, again, are based on my quasi-readings of material as I find it, and on widely scattered and isolated atoms of information. If you want to know in more detail what it is that I'm looking at in cobbling together this reconstruction of their activity, or investigate beyond the links I'll include below, just email me.
A LIST OF BOUZINGO
Up to a few weeks ago I was still discovering new people so this may not be comprehensive. Nearly everyone used pseudonyms, most of them Anglicized and some of them brilliantly funny:
Aloysius Bertrand--writer
Petrus Borel--writer/organizer/translator/painter/architect
Joseph Bouchardy--playwright/engraver
Louis Boulanger--painter, scenographer
Alphonse Brot--playwright (no complete texts so far)
Achille Devéria--painter/lithographer/eroticist
Eugène Devéria--painter & possibly writer, Achille's brother
Xavier Forneret--writer
Théodor Gautier--writer/painter/organizer
Augustus MacKeat--writer (no texts yet)
Gerard de Nerval--writer/translator/organizer
Philothée O'Neddy--writer/organizer/publisher
Célestin Nanteuil--engraver/possibly writer
Jehan de Seigneur--sculptor & possibly painter
Napoléon Thom--painter
Jules Vabre--translator/architect/theorist
XXXX Vigneron--no first name or other information yet
Léon--I don't even have his full name; is this his first or last? What did he do...?
WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING
I do not read or speak French; hence my insistence that this work be translated! In addition to working on the English-language side of the translation process (more on that below), my role is to locate texts and co-ordinate the translation and other elements of the project; to carry out the bulk of the historical research and make sense of it, eventually writing the grounding essay/s for the contextualizing material; to coordinate whatever other material is written by people in the community with regard to the project; researching and writing explanatory and contextual footnotes etc. for the texts; compiling the various appendices and bibliographies that will be called for as the project progresses; and of course editing, publishing, and distributing the books.
The past few months have been spent (among many other things...) gradually tracking down texts online and following or taking note of every possible lead that I can find to give us a broader historical picture of the milieu in which the group operated. Of course this is still in the early stages, and much of the material will only emerge as texts begin to be translated and speak to each other, as it were. Naturally, not only all of these texts, but most everything is in French, so I've become fairly adept at scanning the Google translation of a text to gain the general gist and cobble together some hypotheses about what was being done; it is through this process that I've come up with the specific texts that I'm attaching for provisional inclusion in the initial book, highlighting those aspects of what seems most intriguing about the group.
THE LONG-TERM PLAN
I do not have a definite time-table for the project; I, like most of you, am busy with far more things than I really ought to be doing, and consider it a given that things must move along at a pace that is manageable for everyone involved, and which does not require a definite commitment in terms of quantity or time. I hope to keep the chapbooks coming out at a steady enough pace to feel a momentum--at least one or two a year--but I doubt that that the project as a whole will see completion in less than five years (at the least). We'll see.
We start with this first chapbook, which opens the series with a kind of overview of the group--a bit of work by everyone involved (if I can find it...), and a general introduction/history of the group.
After this, one chapbook at a time, each dedicated to one member of the group. Each book will have up to 50 pages, depending on how much work has survived, and will include a critical biography, translations of texts / reproductions of images with both translators' and historical notes, bibliography, and possibly dedications/responses/illustrations by people working in the contemporary avant/PNA etc. community.
When everyone involved directly with the Bouzingo has been treated, work will begin (mostly my work...) on a massive, perfect-bound volume which will compile all of the translations, images, bios, etc and add more, with expanded histories, notes and bibliographies, a number of essays examining various aspects of the group's structure, dynamics, strategies, and legacy, and whatever responses, essays, transductions, etc. any of us living people want to add. By this time, after all, we ought to be pretty familiar with these dudes.
EDITORIAL ORIENTATION
The basic editorial position from which I am approaching the project, that is in fact at the root of why I (specifically) am attempting to make it happen and asking the mOnocle-Lash community (specifically) to be a part of it, can be conveniently expressed by an observation about the way that the group itself seems to have approached historiography (one of their major concerns, like many avant-gardes):
It appears that the shift in the Bouzingos' activity and deepening of their radicality (and name) coincided with the phenomenon of one of their circle of friends--Victor Hugo--becoming rather suddenly a household name, with a genuine chance to greatly affect the direction of culture, and the relationship of intellectual to mainstream culture as Democracy and Capitalism set the paths they would be following for centuries. They had themselves masterfully planned and executed this virtual coup (which ended, sadly, like most coups) of the on-and-off republic's cultural mechanism through a complex campaign of mythic and journalistic memes and the complex spectacular phenomenon that they mounted at the opening of Hugo's play Hernani. But in the wake of this victory, he (probably inevitably) drifted away from the group. (this would later recur as Gautier, who would become Baudelaire's mentor, gradually moved into a certain amount of public consciousness; Nerval would become canonized within the avant-garde shortly after his death and more widely by the end of the century.) Much of the Bouzingos' work (especially that which addresses Hugo, none with straightforward bitterness) address the obscurity to which they have willingly consigned themselves, and their adherence to a small and intense community and an obscure and disreputable tradition. They began to see radicalized poetics in terms of the cultivation of an experimental utopian community that is marginal on principle, rather than the struggle to become the dominant official ideology or cultural model.
It seems likely, in light of a number of declarations (especially by Borel, O'Neddy, and Bertrand) that much or most of the group would have preferred that the rediscovery they had so cunningly engineered take place in micropress, among the tiny and mingling radical communities that are their direct descendants, perpetrated collectively by people connected through direct human friendships, than that they appear in a university edition, translated by a bourgeois academic, professionally produced and appropriately de-fanged and made respectable for the Literature (or worse, art) departments and the shelves at Barnes & Noble. Thus the importance of this project being taken on in the current form before academia renders it 'merely literature'.
When a group or individual, like the Bouzingo, is active both in the realm of political subversion/psychosocial experimentation/public performance/intervention on the one hand, and in the production of texts, paintings, etc and the discourse surrounding them, there is a tendency for only one aspect (if that) to be seriously investigated. Either the texts are published and discussed as if created and disseminated in a social and personal vacuum, with only vague and secondary reference to their contexts ('oh, and when he was young he hung around with some forgotten bohemians'); or their exploits are told in conversational style and with complete disregard for the theoretical, political, and traditional underpinnings and corollaries to their behaviour. It is my hope not only to avoid both of these pitfalls, but to discover and tease out how these apparently disparate realms of activity related to and inhered within one another.
This has been my primary prerogative in selecting the texts for this first book; I am more than open to changing or adding to these selections however, if translators or others in the community find pieces that strike them as particularly interesting or engaging. The same will go for future chapbooks; I'll likely find a certain number that I would like to ensure are included, and otherwise encourage those translating to work on whatever they find most engaging.
BOOK #1
The plan is to begin with this first chapbook, which will at least give a general indication of what the group was and provide a groundwork for fuller understanding of the group as it emerges from the process of translation and research. It will include one or two texts or images from each member of the group, a fairly concise critical description and history of the group, possibly some bios, and a bibliography.
FOR PROSPECTIVE TRANSLATIONS
To the extent that it's possible (and of course that extent is limited), I think we ought to strive at least to approximate the rhythm, meter, and scansion of the poems; ideally, to preserve or translate the rhyme and sound as well. The physical form and linguistic constraints that these represent--the semiotic rhythms they appealed to, the subtle counter-communications playing out through them, and the force of effort required to confront and utilize them--were constitutive of what verse was, and therefore inevitably vital to why they were writing verse in the midst of all their other activity.
Easy for me to say, I know. And many of you have indicated that while you can transliterate meaning and basic grammatical structure, you might not be down for then attempting to rewrite that result in rhymed dactylic hexameter or whatever. Never fear. I spent most of my poetic apprenticeship writing closed-form verse, and would actively enjoy taking on this latter-task: translation by tag-team.
So if this is the case, simply make an accurate semantic translation, and send that to me, accompanied by notes that let me know about anything unusual, striking, or important that you were unable to translate: puns, plays with word gender or other word permutations that don't exist in English, noticeable concurrences of sound, onomatopoeia, archaic or formal vocabulary, odd syntax, etc. It may be worth looking out for intentional misspellings and grammatical errors--the very name of the group is reputedly an intentional misspelling. I'll take it up from there, working side by side with the French, and make as good an English poem out of it as is possible. If we run into problems, we'll figure it out.
I understand that due to differences in how the languages are structured, and their relationships to what is considered one 'breath's worth' of air, that the standard French alexandrine line (seven metric feet of two to three syllables each) is usually translated into the English pentameter line (five feet). However the Bouzingo do often seem to have preferred the shorter line.
If you too will enjoy the challenge of dealing with these kinds of things, carry on; please include a similar set of notes however, as I'd like each poem to be published with translators' notes as well as editorial notes (which I can do) tracking down various cultural and historical references. If you too would like to help with the English 'poeticization' of the texts, let me know.
WHAT YOU CAN DO (if you'd like)
1: Take a look at the 'bouzingo preview texts for translation' and see what you'd like to try your hand at. Let me know. Whomever tells me first that they want to work on a certain text gets it. (Tomislav Butkovic has already started work on Nerval's Gothic Song.) And/or if you'd like, follow the links below to find other work that you like.
2: Put together a working english transliteration in whatever way seems best to you.
3: Annotate anything unusual, striking, or potentially important that you were unable to translate: puns, plays with word gender or other word permutations that don't exist in English, noticeable concurrences of sound, onomatopoeia, archaic or in/formal vocabulary, odd syntax, intentional misspellings or variant forms, etc.
4: Either play around with it to shape it into an appropriate rhythmic pattern etc., OR simply go ahead and
5: send it along to me.
LINKS
These are the best sources I have found for Bouzingo texts (even project Gutenberg isn't particularly helpful); there are others but the material in them is very scattered and piecemeal. I am trying to concentrate on work of the Bouzingo period specifically, or shortly before and after, let's say 1825-1840 at the outside; particularly in the cases of Gautier and Nerval, who have not themselves been terribly neglected but whose social context and even early work itself has been to a large extent swept under the historical rug. I have yet to find complete usable material by MacKeat, Brot, or Bouchardy, though the latter has some stuff scanned online (i.e., no text files yet; one way or the other we can get him taken care of).
http://www.florilege.free.fr/florilege/
http://poesie.webnet.fr/lesgrandsclassiques/poemes/liste_auteurs_a.html
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Index_des_auteurs
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
As the project progresses, I'll expand this bibliography and post periodic updates on research and freshly translated texts.
Xavier Forneret--writer
Théodor Gautier--writer/painter/organizer
Augustus MacKeat--writer (no texts yet)
Gerard de Nerval--writer/translator/organizer
Philothée O'Neddy--writer/organizer/publisher
Célestin Nanteuil--engraver/possibly writer
Jehan de Seigneur--sculptor & possibly painter
Napoléon Thom--painter
Jules Vabre--translator/architect/theorist
XXXX Vigneron--no first name or other information yet
Léon--I don't even have his full name; is this his first or last? What did he do...?
WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING
I do not read or speak French; hence my insistence that this work be translated! In addition to working on the English-language side of the translation process (more on that below), my role is to locate texts and co-ordinate the translation and other elements of the project; to carry out the bulk of the historical research and make sense of it, eventually writing the grounding essay/s for the contextualizing material; to coordinate whatever other material is written by people in the community with regard to the project; researching and writing explanatory and contextual footnotes etc. for the texts; compiling the various appendices and bibliographies that will be called for as the project progresses; and of course editing, publishing, and distributing the books.
The past few months have been spent (among many other things...) gradually tracking down texts online and following or taking note of every possible lead that I can find to give us a broader historical picture of the milieu in which the group operated. Of course this is still in the early stages, and much of the material will only emerge as texts begin to be translated and speak to each other, as it were. Naturally, not only all of these texts, but most everything is in French, so I've become fairly adept at scanning the Google translation of a text to gain the general gist and cobble together some hypotheses about what was being done; it is through this process that I've come up with the specific texts that I'm attaching for provisional inclusion in the initial book, highlighting those aspects of what seems most intriguing about the group.
THE LONG-TERM PLAN
I do not have a definite time-table for the project; I, like most of you, am busy with far more things than I really ought to be doing, and consider it a given that things must move along at a pace that is manageable for everyone involved, and which does not require a definite commitment in terms of quantity or time. I hope to keep the chapbooks coming out at a steady enough pace to feel a momentum--at least one or two a year--but I doubt that that the project as a whole will see completion in less than five years (at the least). We'll see.
We start with this first chapbook, which opens the series with a kind of overview of the group--a bit of work by everyone involved (if I can find it...), and a general introduction/history of the group.
After this, one chapbook at a time, each dedicated to one member of the group. Each book will have up to 50 pages, depending on how much work has survived, and will include a critical biography, translations of texts / reproductions of images with both translators' and historical notes, bibliography, and possibly dedications/responses/
When everyone involved directly with the Bouzingo has been treated, work will begin (mostly my work...) on a massive, perfect-bound volume which will compile all of the translations, images, bios, etc and add more, with expanded histories, notes and bibliographies, a number of essays examining various aspects of the group's structure, dynamics, strategies, and legacy, and whatever responses, essays, transductions, etc. any of us living people want to add. By this time, after all, we ought to be pretty familiar with these dudes.
EDITORIAL ORIENTATION
The basic editorial position from which I am approaching the project, that is in fact at the root of why I (specifically) am attempting to make it happen and asking the mOnocle-Lash community (specifically) to be a part of it, can be conveniently expressed by an observation about the way that the group itself seems to have approached historiography (one of their major concerns, like many avant-gardes):
It appears that the shift in the Bouzingos' activity and deepening of their radicality (and name) coincided with the phenomenon of one of their circle of friends--Victor Hugo--becoming rather suddenly a household name, with a genuine chance to greatly affect the direction of culture, and the relationship of intellectual to mainstream culture as Democracy and Capitalism set the paths they would be following for centuries. They had themselves masterfully planned and executed this virtual coup (which ended, sadly, like most coups) of the on-and-off republic's cultural mechanism through a complex campaign of mythic and journalistic memes and the complex spectacular phenomenon that they mounted at the opening of Hugo's play Hernani. But in the wake of this victory, he (probably inevitably) drifted away from the group. (this would later recur as Gautier, who would become Baudelaire's mentor, gradually moved into a certain amount of public consciousness; Nerval would become canonized within the avant-garde shortly after his death and more widely by the end of the century.) Much of the Bouzingos' work (especially that which addresses Hugo, none with straightforward bitterness) address the obscurity to which they have willingly consigned themselves, and their adherence to a small and intense community and an obscure and disreputable tradition. They began to see radicalized poetics in terms of the cultivation of an experimental utopian community that is marginal on principle, rather than the struggle to become the dominant official ideology or cultural model.
It seems likely, in light of a number of declarations (especially by Borel, O'Neddy, and Bertrand) that much or most of the group would have preferred that the rediscovery they had so cunningly engineered take place in micropress, among the tiny and mingling radical communities that are their direct descendants, perpetrated collectively by people connected through direct human friendships, than that they appear in a university edition, translated by a bourgeois academic, professionally produced and appropriately de-fanged and made respectable for the Literature (or worse, art) departments and the shelves at Barnes & Noble. Thus the importance of this project being taken on in the current form before academia renders it 'merely literature'.
When a group or individual, like the Bouzingo, is active both in the realm of political subversion/psychosocial experimentation/public performance/intervention on the one hand, and in the production of texts, paintings, etc and the discourse surrounding them, there is a tendency for only one aspect (if that) to be seriously investigated. Either the texts are published and discussed as if created and disseminated in a social and personal vacuum, with only vague and secondary reference to their contexts ('oh, and when he was young he hung around with some forgotten bohemians'); or their exploits are told in conversational style and with complete disregard for the theoretical, political, and traditional underpinnings and corollaries to their behaviour. It is my hope not only to avoid both of these pitfalls, but to discover and tease out how these apparently disparate realms of activity related to and inhered within one another.
This has been my primary prerogative in selecting the texts for this first book; I am more than open to changing or adding to these selections however, if translators or others in the community find pieces that strike them as particularly interesting or engaging. The same will go for future chapbooks; I'll likely find a certain number that I would like to ensure are included, and otherwise encourage those translating to work on whatever they find most engaging.
BOOK #1
The plan is to begin with this first chapbook, which will at least give a general indication of what the group was and provide a groundwork for fuller understanding of the group as it emerges from the process of translation and research. It will include one or two texts or images from each member of the group, a fairly concise critical description and history of the group, possibly some bios, and a bibliography.
FOR PROSPECTIVE TRANSLATIONS
To the extent that it's possible (and of course that extent is limited), I think we ought to strive at least to approximate the rhythm, meter, and scansion of the poems; ideally, to preserve or translate the rhyme and sound as well. The physical form and linguistic constraints that these represent--the semiotic rhythms they appealed to, the subtle counter-communications playing out through them, and the force of effort required to confront and utilize them--were constitutive of what verse was, and therefore inevitably vital to why they were writing verse in the midst of all their other activity.
Easy for me to say, I know. And many of you have indicated that while you can transliterate meaning and basic grammatical structure, you might not be down for then attempting to rewrite that result in rhymed dactylic hexameter or whatever. Never fear. I spent most of my poetic apprenticeship writing closed-form verse, and would actively enjoy taking on this latter-task: translation by tag-team.
So if this is the case, simply make an accurate semantic translation, and send that to me, accompanied by notes that let me know about anything unusual, striking, or important that you were unable to translate: puns, plays with word gender or other word permutations that don't exist in English, noticeable concurrences of sound, onomatopoeia, archaic or formal vocabulary, odd syntax, etc. It may be worth looking out for intentional misspellings and grammatical errors--the very name of the group is reputedly an intentional misspelling. I'll take it up from there, working side by side with the French, and make as good an English poem out of it as is possible. If we run into problems, we'll figure it out.
I understand that due to differences in how the languages are structured, and their relationships to what is considered one 'breath's worth' of air, that the standard French alexandrine line (seven metric feet of two to three syllables each) is usually translated into the English pentameter line (five feet). However the Bouzingo do often seem to have preferred the shorter line.
If you too will enjoy the challenge of dealing with these kinds of things, carry on; please include a similar set of notes however, as I'd like each poem to be published with translators' notes as well as editorial notes (which I can do) tracking down various cultural and historical references. If you too would like to help with the English 'poeticization' of the texts, let me know.
WHAT YOU CAN DO (if you'd like)
1: Take a look at the 'bouzingo preview texts for translation' and see what you'd like to try your hand at. Let me know. Whomever tells me first that they want to work on a certain text gets it. (Tomislav Butkovic has already started work on Nerval's Gothic Song.) And/or if you'd like, follow the links below to find other work that you like.
2: Put together a working english transliteration in whatever way seems best to you.
3: Annotate anything unusual, striking, or potentially important that you were unable to translate: puns, plays with word gender or other word permutations that don't exist in English, noticeable concurrences of sound, onomatopoeia, archaic or in/formal vocabulary, odd syntax, intentional misspellings or variant forms, etc.
4: Either play around with it to shape it into an appropriate rhythmic pattern etc., OR simply go ahead and
5: send it along to me.
LINKS
These are the best sources I have found for Bouzingo texts (even project Gutenberg isn't particularly helpful); there are others but the material in them is very scattered and piecemeal. I am trying to concentrate on work of the Bouzingo period specifically, or shortly before and after, let's say 1825-1840 at the outside; particularly in the cases of Gautier and Nerval, who have not themselves been terribly neglected but whose social context and even early work itself has been to a large extent swept under the historical rug. I have yet to find complete usable material by MacKeat, Brot, or Bouchardy, though the latter has some stuff scanned online (i.e., no text files yet; one way or the other we can get him taken care of).
http://www.florilege.free.fr/
http://poesie.webnet.fr/
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/
As the project progresses, I'll expand this bibliography and post periodic updates on research and freshly translated texts.
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