Description: Songs without Words (Romances sans paroles) is the book in which, unabashedly, Paul Verlaine becomes himself and, in so doing, becomes the iconic poet of the French nineteenth century.
Brief description: Norman R. Shapiro is a professor of Romance languages and literatures at Wesleyan University. Among his many translations are Four Farces by Georges Feydeau, which was nominated for a National Book Award, The Fabulists French: Verse Fables of Nine Centuries, named Distinguished Book of the Year by the American Literary Translators' Association, and Charles Baudelaire: Selected Poems from Les Fleurs du mal, the last published by the University of Chicago Press.