NYC #53: Dante, Broadway, Manhattan

A noticeboard outside the park states:

'Dante Park is named after Italy's great poet, Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). Born to a noble Florentine family, Dante immersed himself in the study of philosophy and Provençal poetry. In 1302 Dante was banished from Florence for his political views and became citizen of Italy. While in exile, he composed The Divine Comedy, the first vernacular poetic masterpiece. It tells of the poet's journey from Hell to Heaven, presenting a changeless universe ordered by God. Through The Divine Comedy and his many other works, Dante established Tuscan as the literary language of Italy and gave rise to a great body of literature.

The park's bronze monument was dedicated in 1921 (the 600th anniversary of Dante's death) and was created by sculptor Ettore Ximenes. The New York branch of the Dante Alighieri Society and Carlo Barsotti, editor of Il Progresso (the first Italian newspaper in the United States), raised funds towards the creation of the statue.'

The Busts of writers on rue d'Auteuil, Québec city

On the rue d'Auteuil in Québec city are a series of monuments to writers, installed there at different periods of the present century. The busts of Pushkin and Nelligan testify to the friendship between Saint Petersburg and Québec city.

Émile Nelligan (1879–1941), about whom I made a post here.

The bust contains a sonnet in which it is (quite possibly incorrectly) dated as 1899, the same year of Nelligan's entry into a mental hospital. The poem tells of a golden ship being wrecked, although of course it is really Nelligan himself who is mentally wrecked.

'Le Vaisseau d'or

C'était un grand Vaisseau taillé dans l'or massif.
Ses mâts touchaient l'azur sur des mers inconnues;
La Cyprine d'amour, cheveux épars, chairs nues,
S'étalait à sa proue, au soleil excessif.

Mais il vint une nuit frapper le grand écueil
Dans l'Océan trompeur où chantait la Sirène,
Et le naufrage horrible inclina sa carène
Aux profondeurs du Gouffre, immuable cercueil.

Ce fut un Vaisseau d'Or, dont les flancs diaphanes
Révélaient des trésors que les marins profanes,
Dégoùt, Haine et Névrose, entre eux ont disputés.

Que reste-t-il de lui dans la tempête brève ?
Qu'est devenu mon coeur, navire déserté ?
Hélas ! Il a sombré dans l'abîme du Rêve !'

Alexandre Pouchkine (Eng: Pushkin) (1799-1837).

'Mon nom ? Mais qu’est-il donc pour toi ?
Il mourra, comme sur la grève
Meurt l’écho que le flot soulève;
Comme un bruit, la nuit, dans un bois.

C’est un signe incompréhensible
Que ton carnet aura gardé,
Tel, sur une tombe, gravé,
Un grimoire en langue illisible.

Mon nom ? Tu l’auras oublié
Dans les remous, les aventures.
Sur ton âme il n’aura laissé
Aucune trace tendre ou pure.

Mais un jour triste, dis-le bien
À voix haute, avec nostalgie;
Tu diras : quelqu’un se souvient,
Un coœur où vit encore ma vie…'

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)

'O lumière qui tant t'élève
au-dessus des pensées mortelles, reprête un peu
à mon esprit de ce que tu semblais
et rends ma langue si puisssante
qu'une étincelle de ta gloire
puisse arriver aux génerations futures'

Translation on the plinth of the bust from The Divine Comedy.

The poet and musical composer Komitas (1869–1935) is described here as the 'father and mother' of Armenian music, and notes that he scoured his country in order to save songs, dances and melodies from oblivion. The words below, an extact from Chant de l'émigré, are addressed to the crane bird, asking if it has news of their mutual country.

'Grue, d'où viens-tu ? Je suis l'esclave de ta voix !
Grue, n'as-tu pas une petite nouvelle de notre pays ?
Ne te presse pas, tu rejoindras bientôt ton essaim ;
grue, n'as-tu pas une petite nouvelle de notre pays ?'

The Confucian scholar and poet Nguyễn Trãi (1380–1442) was recognised by UNESCO as the person most representative of Vietnamese culture.

Taras Chevtchenko (1814–61), who was also named Schevchenko in English, was an important poet, a painter and a great supporter of Urkainian culture. The bust was erected in 2014 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Chevtchenko's birth.

'Que notre esprit, que notre chant
Ne meure, ni s'éteigne.
C'est là que réside notre gloire,
La Gloire de Ukraine !'

I also have a link to another monument of him in Paris here.

The Rodin Museum / Le Musée Rodin, 7th arrondissement, Paris, France: Literary Île-de-France #33

The Rodin Museum was established in 1916 after three donations by Auguste Rodin (1840—1917) to the French state of his works, collections, library, letters, and manuscripts. It is where the former hôtel Biron was, which Rodin had rented from 1908.

A plaque stating that (the poet) Rainer-Maria Rilke lived there from 1908-1911.

The museum gardens have a number sculptures relating to literature. This in bronze (1902—04) is The Three Shadows (Les Trois Ombres), and is a representation from Dante's The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia), with its warning: 'Abandon hope all you who enter here'. The three figures are identical, and Rodin gives them back the hands missing from them at the top of his work The Door to Hell (La Porte de'L'enfer) (1880—1917).

Rodin worked on La Porte de l'Enfer for many years, drawing on the figures (over 200) here for the rest of his working life.

He died before seeing the full masterpiece put together in cast iron.

The Victor Hugo monument.

A detail of the monument to Hugo.

In a gallery of marble exhibits there are several representations of Hugo.

There is also a bust of George Bernard Shaw, made in 1906.

On the other side of the hotel is the statue of Balzac.

Finally, it would probably be a mistake to exclude Le Penseur (The Thinker).