The Heresiarch and Co.

Apollinaire, Guillaume, 1880-1918Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.2

Word count: 267K words
Chapters: 27

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.L'hérésiarque et Cie by Guillaume ApollinaireAuthor: Apollinaire, Guillaume, 1880-1918,Language: French, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Aug 19, 2007

Editor's review

L'hérésiarque et Cie is a collection of short stories by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, published in 1910; the original French text is freely available from Project Gutenberg. The title may be rendered literally as The Heresiarch and Co. The volume gathers brief, tightly crafted narratives whose subjects range from religious legend and exotic travelogue to wonder tales and satire, moving between story, fable, and essay. Apollinaire brings a poet's sensibility to narrative: the language is spare and vivid, and the absurd and the mysterious often intrude on ordinary scenes, reflecting early twentieth-century French literature's break with traditional storytelling. The collection does not demand continuous reading like a novel; it suits piecemeal reading and serves as an entry point to Apollinaire's prose style. Because it is the original French text with period cultural references, readers need some French and a little patience with religious allusion and the literary tastes of the day. Its value lies less in complete plots than in the verbal pleasure and imaginative space of each short piece, and it rewards readers willing to read slowly and return.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers with intermediate to advanced French who want to encounter original short stories
Researchers interested in Apollinaire's prose beyond his poetry
Literary readers who enjoy short wonder tales, fable-like narrative, and satire
Teachers seeking early twentieth-century French selections for course materials

Not a good fit for

Beginners in French or readers who need a Chinese translation alongside
Novel readers who prefer continuous plots and clear endings
Readers impatient with religious allusion and symbolic narrative

Reading tips

Read only one or two pieces at a time, pausing afterward to savor the language and absurdity.
Keep a French dictionary at hand; mark religious allusions first and look them up after finishing each piece.
Start with the shortest pieces, then move to longer ones once you are used to the style.
After reading, retell one story's plot in Chinese to check whether you have grasped its narrative core.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What level of French is needed to read this book?

The text consists of early twentieth-century French short stories with a literary syntax and religious and cultural allusions. Intermediate to advanced French is recommended, with a dictionary for unfamiliar words and background. Beginners will find direct reading difficult; they might first consult a translation and then return to the original.

Are the stories linked by a continuous plot?

Each piece stands largely on its own, with no continuous subjects or characters; the collection is better seen as short pieces grouped around heresy, wonder, and satire. Readers can begin anywhere and need not follow the order, which suits piecemeal reading rather than pursuing a single long story.

Apollinaire is known as a poet—is this collection worth reading?

Apollinaire is famous for his poetry, but this collection reveals his narrative and satirical side, with language that retains a poet's concision and imagery. For readers who want the full range of his work, it is an important counterpart to the poetry, though it is more demanding than ordinary fiction.

What is the reading experience of the Project Gutenberg edition like?

This edition is a free full-text French ebook released in 2007 and usually lacks modern notes or an introduction. Readers must supply their own dictionary and background materials; it suits reading piece by piece on an electronic device. Those who need annotations may consult an annotated print or scholarly edition alongside it.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Apollinaire, Guillaume, 1880-1918 Author

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) was a French poet and a major figure in the early twentieth-century European avant-garde. Public information about his life is limited, so no detailed account is given here. The library holds eight of his works, spanning poetry, art criticism and fiction. The poetry collections Alcools and Calligrammes show his effort to combine lyric tradition with formal experiment, the latter arranging words into images that challenge the layout and reading habits of poetry. Les Peintres Cubistes reveals his keen observation of contemporary painting. L'Hérésiarque et Cie, Le poète assassiné, Le flâneur des deux rives, La femme assise and Les trois Don Juan display the imaginative and satirical bent of his fiction and narrative writing. His work blends the legacy of Symbolism with proto-Surrealist tendencies and has deeply influenced modern poetry.