William Plomerウィリアム・プルーマー / 1903-73

Category

詩人 P〜R 1860年〜1930年 翻訳作品 詩人 P〜R

南アフリカ、ピーターズバーグ (Pietersburg) 生まれの英国の詩人、小説家。最初の小説 Turbott Wolfe (1926) は、南アフリカを舞台とした異人種間の恋愛と結婚をテーマとしている。1920年代の後半、およそ2年間を日本で過ごし、教職の傍ら著作と旅行に励み、その成果が詩や短編集 Paper Houses (1929) や小説 Sado (1931) で発表された。1929年にイギリスに移り、ロンドンのブルームズベリー（Bloomsbury）に居を構えて、ウルフ (Virginia Woolf, 1882-1941) らと親交を深めていった。

 

プルーマーの最初の詩集 Notes for Poems は1927に出版され、Collected Poems が 1973年に出版されている。彼は、自身の詩作精神について次のように述べている：

 

“A concern with persons, in their times and places, has always been a main motive force in my poetry. Because of that, my poems have narrative and dramatic tendencies, and a good many have taken ballad-like forms, sometimes being concerned with the blending or juxtaposition of the monstrous with the commonplace, or the pathetic and absurd with the tragic or ominous.” [Rosalie Murphy, ed., Contemporary Poets (London: St. James P, 1970) 861]

 

40年代から50年代にかけて書かれた一連のバラッド詩は ‘a treasure of Plomer’s’ と呼ばれ、都会を舞台とした鋭い諷刺に満ちた作品群である。　(M. Y.)

Poet and novelist, born in Pietersburg, South Africa, of British parents. Turbott Wolfe (1926) is Plomer’s first novel, portraying South African life, including inter-racial love and marriage. He spent a period teaching and writing and travelling in Japan in the late 1920s, an experience reflected in his poems, in Paper Houses (stories, 1929), and in Sado (a novel, 1931). He then moved to England in 1929, and settled in Bloomsbury, where he was befriended by Leonard and Virginia Woolf, and entered the London literary circles.

 

Plomer’s first volume of poetry, Notes for Poems, was published in 1927, followed by several others, and his Collected Poems appeared in 1973. He states about his creative mind:

 

“A concern with persons, in their times and places, has always been a main motive force in my poetry. Because of that, my poems have narrative and dramatic tendencies, and a good many have taken ballad-like forms, sometimes being concerned with the blending or juxtaposition of the monstrous with the commonplace, or the pathetic and absurd with the tragic or ominous.” [Rosalie Murphy, ed., Contemporary Poets (London: St. James P, 1970) 861]

 

Plomer’s chain of literary ballads written in the 1940s and 50s is largely satirical and urbane, and has been called ‘a treasure of Plomer’s’.    (M. Y.)

原詩（PDF）

  • 1. Anglo-Swiss: or, a Day among the Alps
  • 2. Atheling Grange: or, the Apotheosis of Lotte Nussbaum
  • 3. The Dorking Thigh
  • 4. French Lisette: a Ballad of Maida Vale
  • 5. Mews Flat Mona: a Memory of the ’Twenties
  • 6. The Murder on the Downs
  • 7. The Naiad of Ostend: or, a Fatal Passion
  • 8. The Self-Made Blonde
  • 9. A Shot in the Park
  • 10. Slightly Foxed: or, the Widower of Bayswater
  • 11. The Widow’s Plot: or, She Got What Was Coming to Her

訳詩（PDF）

  • 6. 丘陵（ダウンズ）殺人事件

論文／研究ノート

  • 山中光義「無機質殺人」

原詩出典

＊　Collected Poems. London, 1960.