Elegies
New York Review Books · Paperback · January 13, 2026
The central works of one of France's most renowned poets, now translated into English for the first time in a bilingual edition.
We earn from qualifying purchases.
- Who it’s for
- Hocquard’s elegies move between street-level detail and the ancient roots of the form.
- Themes
- The past as a shared commons, Everyday life and private existence, The ancient roots of elegy
- Genres
- French Poetry, Poetry About Death
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved.
The Flowers of EvilCharles Baudelaire, Nathan Brown53% matchShares French Poetry
Coming in to LandAndrew Motion52% match
Complete Poems of C. P. CavafyC.P. Cavafy50% match
Collected French Translations: ProseJohn Ashbery, Eugene Richie50% match
Arthur Rimbaud: Complete WorksArthur Rimbaud49% matchShares French Poetry
Cavafy: PoemsC.P. Cavafy, Daniel Mendelsohn49% match
ReliquariaR.A. Villanueva48% matchShares Poetry About Death
The Homeric HymnsApostolos N. Athanassakis48% match
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Start with this bookAbout this book
The central works of one of France's most renowned poets, now translated into English for the first time in a bilingual edition. Emmanuel Hocquard's Elegies, written over some twenty-five years, lie at the core of his oeuvre, one of the most admired in contemporary French poetry. They sound the depths of the past, finding it ever deeper, and they pose the question: To whom does the past belong? Like air and water, Hocquard suggests, the past is a commons shared by all.
Continue reading
His Elegies are full of quotidian detail—the life of the street and the marketplace, overheard conversations, glimpses of private existence—even as they make room for the ancient world from which the form of the elegy descends. Hocquard has distinguished between two types of elegiac poet—what he calls the classic and the inverse. The classic ruminates on the past; the inverse remakes it. Hocquard is an inverse elegiac poet: Rich with the past, his poems lead us into an ever-expanding present.
The Shared Past
Hocquard’s elegies move between street-level detail and the ancient roots of the form.
Come here for
- Street life, marketplaces, and overheard conversations
- The question of who the past belongs to
Expect
- A bilingual edition, translated into English
- Poems written over some twenty-five years
Where it sits
| French Poetry | 90% |
|---|---|
| Poetry About Death | 79% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- French Poetry
- Poetry - General Themes
- Poetry About Death
- Authors
- Emmanuel Hocquard
- Publisher
- New York Review Books
- Published
- January 13, 2026
- Format
- Paperback
- Theme
- The past as a shared commons · Everyday life and private existence · The ancient roots of elegy
- Reading lane
- French Poetry