The Collected Poems of Georges Bataille (review)

Bataille, Georges. The Collected Poems of Georges Bataille. Trans. and with Intro. by Mark Spitzer. Chester Springs, PA: Dufour Editions, 1998. Paper: 140 pages.

The publication of Mark Spitzer’s version of the poetry of Georges Bataille only serves to remind this reader how well English language readers of Bataille would be served by an adequate translation of this and other still untranslated poetic writings by Bataille. In an adequate translation, Bataille’s poetry should occasion rich debate among poets, philosophers and historians of religion, not only for its violent and sexually explicit language, but as an aid to understanding his challenging thought, a point of entry into his sometimes arcane technical language, and a means to understanding the personal and historical context and orientation of Bataille’s work as a whole.