Reading Order
Calligrammes Reading Order
Calligrammes (1918) by Guillaume Apollinaire is the wartime collection of visual and lyric poems that simultaneously documents Apollinaire's experience at the front (1914-16) and pushes the formal experiments begun in Alcools to their furthest extension — creating 'calligrams' (ideogrammatic poems whose visual arrangement on the page represents their subject: a horse, a Watteau figure, the Eiffel Tower, a heart, a watch, a mandoline) alongside conventional lyric poems about the war, love letters, and occasional pieces. The collection opens with 'Liens' (Links, 1914) and includes 'La Colombe poignardée et le Jet d'eau' (The Wounded Dove and the Fountain — one of the most famous calligrams, in the shape of a fountain with the names of dead or distant friends written in it), 'Il Pleut' (It's Raining — seven lines arranged as diagonal rain lines falling down the page), and 'Lettre-Océan' (Ocean Letter — a two-page calligram in the form of radiating circles representing a radio signal). The war poems are among the most honest and moving of the First World War — Apollinaire is neither defeatist nor jingoistic but genuinely present at the front, and the tension between the formal experimentation and the actuality of death and mud is part of what makes the collection extraordinary.
Where to start
Begin with 'Zone' from Alcools (if you haven't already) to understand where Calligrammes is starting from, then 'Liens' (the opening poem of Calligrammes — about ties, connections, being bound), then 'La Colombe poignardée et le Jet d'eau' (the fountain calligram — the most famous and most moving). Then read the war poems ('Merveille de la Guerre,' 'La Nuit d'Avril 1915,' 'Toujours') as a sequence, and finally the calligrams 'Il Pleut' and 'Lettre-Océan.'
Complete Calligrammes Book List
- 1Buy
Calligrammes (1918)
Guillaume Apollinaire·1918·Facsimile editions that reproduce the visual layout are essential; the Gallimard/Poésie edition includes the calligrams in their original typographic form. In English: the Anne Hyde Greet translation (University of California Press, 1980) reproduces the calligrams with facing-page French text. - 2Buy
Alcools (1913)
Guillaume Apollinaire·1913·The predecessor collection — reading Alcools first gives the essential context for the development in Calligrammes; the formal experiments of the later collection make more sense against the lyric foundation of the earlier. - 3Buy
Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard
Stéphane Mallarmé·1897·The typographic experiment that directly precedes and influences the calligrams — Apollinaire was aware of Mallarmé's spatial poem, and comparing the two shows the line of development from 1897 to 1918. - 4Buy
Poèmes à Lou (1955)
Guillaume Apollinaire·1955·The love letters-turned-poems from the front, published posthumously — the personal complement to the more formal war poems in Calligrammes, showing the same experience in a more intimate register. - 5Buy
Cœur de Chêne
Blaise Cendrars·1917·Cendrars's wartime poems (he lost his right arm in the Marne offensive) are the immediate parallel — the two poets were close friends, and their war poetry shares the combination of experimental form and genuine physical experience of combat.
Calligrammes — Frequently Asked Questions
What is a calligram?
A calligram is a poem whose visual arrangement represents the poem's subject — the words form a picture of what the poem is about. Apollinaire invented the term (from 'calligraphy' and 'ideogram') for the poems in this collection, though the tradition of shape poetry goes back to ancient Greek and Latin verse and through the Renaissance to the Victorian period. Apollinaire's calligrams are more complex than simple picture poems: 'Il Pleut' (It's Raining) consists of seven lines arranged as diagonal rain lines falling down the page, so that reading the poem feels like watching rain; 'La Colombe poignardée' is in the shape of a fountain with the names of friends written in the water jets.
Was Apollinaire in the trenches when he wrote Calligrammes?
Yes — Apollinaire enlisted in 1914 (he had to apply for naturalization as a French citizen since he was technically a stateless person of Polish-Italian origin), served as an artillery officer, then transferred to the infantry. He was wounded in the head by shrapnel in March 1916 and spent months recovering — a trepanation (skull surgery) was performed. The head wound left him permanently weakened; he died in November 1918 of the influenza pandemic, two days before the Armistice, at age thirty-eight. The wartime experience is directly documented in Calligrammes.
What is 'Lettre-Océan' and why is it important?
'Lettre-Océan' (1914) is a two-page calligram in the form of concentric circles radiating from a central point — representing a radio signal, or the circular ripple of a transmission across the Atlantic (Apollinaire's brother was in Mexico City, and the poem is addressed to him). It incorporates fragments of radio messages, newspaper headlines, street sounds, and other non-literary material into a visual-typographic structure. It is the most ambitious single piece in Calligrammes and is considered the founding work of what would later be called 'total poetry' — the integration of visual, typographic, and linguistic elements into a single composition.
Did Apollinaire invent the term 'Surrealism'?
Yes — Apollinaire coined the term 'sur-réalisme' in 1917 in the preface to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias and the program notes to the ballet Parade (with sets by Picasso). He used it to mean 'beyond realism' or 'above realism' — a new kind of art that would go beyond the merely realistic imitation of the world. André Breton later adopted the term for his movement, giving it the specific meaning of 'pure psychic automatism' and unconscious expression. Apollinaire died before Breton's Surrealist Manifesto (1924), so there is no direct connection between the two usages beyond the shared term.
What is Apollinaire's relationship to Cubism?
Apollinaire was the most important early critic and champion of Cubism — his 1913 book Les Peintres cubistes is the founding critical text of the movement, and he was close friends with Picasso, Braque, Léger, Delaunay, and Juan Gris. The influence was mutual: just as the Cubists took from Apollinaire the idea of juxtaposing multiple perspectives and registers, Apollinaire took from Cubism the idea of representing multiple simultaneous viewpoints in a single artwork. The calligrams are in a sense the literary equivalent of Cubist collage — multiple types of material (visual, typographic, verbal, documentary) combined into a single surface.
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